Death is hard and heavy stuff.  There is no escape.  One day sooner or later you will die.  Nobody is exempt, no matter how hard we try.  And it seems that much or most of our efforts in this life are devoted to avoiding death, or at least avoiding thinking about it.  We join (or start) religions, try to bury ourselves in pleasure or wealth, and segregate the sick and the old so we never have to be reminded of the uncomfortable truth.  This fear of death seems to be one of the major forces driving our society, and probably the whole human race.  Probably one of the first realizations we had, way back in the mists of time when we first awoke to ourselves, was that these very selves would not last forever.  This stark truth has been part of our collective unconscious ever since, and any religion or philosophy humankind has ever created has had to deal with it.  And it is not just our own lives that end; all of these very religions, philosophies, societies, cultures, traditions, and whatever else we create to ensure some form of permanence, all these things too pass into history sooner or later.  A thousand years from now, likely only distorted memories will remain of all our works.  Probably some individuals will be remembered, but in a distorted and legendary way.  We of this era can have no direct influence that far into the future; none of our power will survive that long.

     It could be that in some form we survive death.  It is possible that each of us has some sort of soul that moves on after the body dies.  Yes, that possibility cannot be disproven, though many have tried.  But many have tried to prove it too, and that too is not possible.  Death is not tractable to logic; for logic is something we invented to impose order on a universe that seems random.  Logic does not apply to death.  There are also many who have had experiences which lead them to believe in some kind of life after death.  I have not had any such experience, nor do the stories convince me.  The human mind is vast and complicated, and the unconscious is strong.  It would be simple, confronted with the certainty of death, to create beliefs or experiences that would lessen the fear of it and enable us to function.  When death strikes especially closely, it is vital to find some way of dealing with it.  Thus are many experiences created, which grant the comfort necessary to go on with life.  But I do not say that all such experiences are created by the mind; just that many are.  It would be ridiculous for me to deny any existence beyond the physical and mental worlds.  But I lack the faith that would let me take that sort of comfort; I prefer to live as if this life is all I have, rather than staking hope in another chance.

     Sure, I'd love to believe that after I die I'll go to a nice place where I'll be reunited with those I love, and there'll be no more loneliness or pain forever and ever, world without end...  Sometimes in my weaker moments I do believe in that kind of thing, probably because I'm human and thus feel pain and loneliness a good bit of the time.  Thing is, heaven always starts looking like wishful thinking after awhile and I always end up swearing it off again.  Even worse, the belief in heaven can be a real mindfucker.  Imagine how it feels to be a messed-up teenager sitting in church hearing about this place where there's love, acceptance, happiness, no assholes to bug you... and all you have to do to go there is die! Pretty damn scary.  Luckily most people don't seem to believe in it, or we'd have a hell of a lot more kids killing themselves.

     Hell of course is even more of a mindfuck.  Do as you're told, be a good sheep, or you burn forever!  Who do they think they're fooling?  Hell was the first thing I stopped believing in, the most obviously fake thing about Christianity.  Of *course* they're going to tell you there's a hell; they want you to do what they want you to do.  They want you to turn your energy towards helping them find even more lost souls and bringing them into the mindfuck too.  That's what you're supposed to be doing with your life, not the things that you enjoy.  That's why the whole church is so down on sex... but don't get me started on that one.  That's another topic...  Of course I'm not advocating just letting fly and doing whatever the hell you feel like doing.  We're all in this together, and peeing in the pool is rude.

     Anyway, I have to say that there are times when belief in an afterlife has its place.  If someone's about to lose a loved one, I'm not going to get in their face and insist on my beliefs about the finality of death.  Maybe that's hypocritical of me, but I like to think I do have *some* compassion.  Sometimes myths are necessary to get us through life.  And I still have to admit that it I can't *prove* it's just a myth.  But unless and until I have some undeniable experience to convince me otherwise, I say that belief in an afterlife is not a good thing, because it robs me of the will to focus on this life and do what I can to help deal with all the shit we're in.  As far as I can tell, death is final, no hope, no way around it.

     So, I must be a gloomy, hopeless person, right?  Far from it!  Yes, when I was first realizing these things it was a very hard time for me.  I came close to deciding that life was totally worthless and pointless, and nearly ended my own life before I learned differently.  This world is a beautiful place, despite the mess we're making of it.  There are other people around me who help make life worth living as well.  And there is immortality, of a sort; for there are always other people living on after each one of us dies.  I believe that when we affect anyone, a small piece of ourselves goes with them.  If our action causes them to act differently to someone else, that little bit of us is spread to them as well.  When we live with someone for years and years, we become so intertwined that unless our core identity is strong it can almost become, and all too often actually seems to be, lost in the influence of the other person.  (The extreme form of this is not immortality; rather it is murder (or suicide).)  Your ego-self, that which we usually experience as 'I', is not what survives, and should never be forced on anyone else no matter how willing they are to receive it.  No, the immortality that I'm talking about is more subtle, and not conscious.  It is the immortality of influence (for lack of a better word); "the evil that men do lives after them," but also the good.  (And not just men of course, but this rant is about death, not sexism, so I won't belabor the issue.)  Our choices have an effect on those who come after.  And now it seems that we have the power to make it impossible for anyone to come after us.  We are certainly making it harder for our descendants; harder for them to be born, and harder to live, and harder still for them to have any descendants.  It is ironic that we make these choices that lessen our own immortality out of this very same fear of death.  It seems that some few, seeing the imminent end of their ego-selves, have formed an unconscious desire to end everything else as well.  Others simply seem not to care, and live as though nothing after their death matters; but while it seems that they themselves will not be affected, what about their children?  Still others, probably most people, simply ignore what is going on and hope for the best, perhaps believing in some sort of supernatural rescue.

     But why fear death?  Will the fear keep it away even one single second longer?  True, fear may induce us not to take risks, which might make us live longer (or might not.)  But constant fear saps our energies and wears us down, and thus probably hastens death; and even if it does not, it robs us of opportunities in life.

     I myself am not especially eager to die.  I'm eager to live.  And I want to enjoy it while I'm here, not live in fear.  Knowing that it will not last forever makes each moment all the more precious and beautiful.  It seems that when I am least conscious of the impermanence of life, I am more likely to fritter away time in pointless pursuits that take me further away from what really matters.  And who knows? maybe there *is* an afterlife.  But I refuse to fret about it... I'll find out soon enough.

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