Fear of Death

I suspect a goodly portion of my interest in new age philosophy stems from my fear of death. The fear of death is a problem not because of the death part but because of the fear part. Actually, it’s not even a problem in the traditional sense based on the definition of the word problem, which Google says is “a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.” Death is certainly unwelcome and harmful, but it can’t meaningfully be dealt with or overcome in the same way as the common cold or spilled milk can. Not only will death never be solved, it can’t even be addressed except for through your thoughts and feelings. Death is likely an essential “feature” of life without which life would probably not “work”.

Whatever you focus on, you bring closer to yourself. So to the degree that you focus on your fear of death you actually bring it closer.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “It is what it is.”? Death is the Lord of all things that are what they are – so much so that the other things which are what they are practically don’t exist. Because death is so utterly inevitable, the only conclusion is that it must, by necessity, be a non-issue, and not worth worrying about. How could it be otherwise? Its inexorability renders it the least grave of all non-issues.

The fear part is due solely to your thoughts and feelings about death. To change your fear you have to change your thoughts and feelings. Much of the fear comes from what’s commonly referred to as “ego”, which, among other things, exists to keep you alive. The ego has a way of “over-correcting”. It seems to expand to fit its container and is responsible for so many terrible things in life.

Watch dogs play in a park. Watch cats bat balls of yarn around. Watch birds fly around and then land and pick up worms from the ground. Watch documentaries of monkeys swinging around on trees and lions roaring. Watch dolphins swim fast and then jump into the air and dive back into the water. Do any of these animals look gripped by the terrifying fear of death?

Sure, if you poke a lion with a stick it will get angry and fight back. I don’t recommend it. But in their day to day activities, you never see animals terrified by any existential fears. They’re only concerned with actual threats in the present. Do you think the human gift of superior intelligence was meant to be spoiled by our knowledge of death? Animals live in the present and, for the most part, we should too. Of course you should save money, plan for retirement, and improve society for future generations. But most of your focus should be on the present. Animals do what animals do and people should do what people do, in a happy-go-lucky way.

You weren’t put on this earth to spend any time ruminating about death and feeling afraid. Your only job is to keep moving forward and to keep moving forward and to kee

There’re lots of things to feel anxious about and it makes the most sense to prioritize anxiety in the order of most imminent or most proximal. Of all the things you’ll do in life, death will certainly be the last. What penalty would you accrue if you decided to fully accept your death but postpone feeling uncomfortable about it until after you’ve died? I don’t think anyone would object to that.

How important is it really for you to live forever as opposed to, say, one hundred years or so? After you’ve had a great family and loved them as much as possible, had a great career and shared wealth with your family and others, and enjoyed all your favorite hobbies and foods, what else is there to do in life? Probably more of the same, which is great, but if you’ve done a good enough job on these, I see no problem in declaring yourself “graduated” from this current lifetime. Sure there’s always more to learn and do, but maybe you’d be better off doing so in a different form. If you’ve mastered this version of yourself, maybe there are other more challenging versions waiting for you.

I feel like my entire life has been a gift I’ve been given as a reward for something good I must have done in a previous life. I’ve had a wonderful life, and I’m not even rich!

Or, perhaps I’m a “young soul” and they make young souls’ lives easier and only introduce more serious challenges to older souls who can handle them.

I think the ideas of an afterlife and of no afterlife are equally ridiculous. How is there life now but not life later? What does it mean that I am me? If one day the universe will “die” and stay dead “forever” and we currently occupy only the tiniest sliver of time, how come the universe hasn’t already died and isn’t already a foregone conclusion? How come life isn’t already over? Are we somehow fortunate to be alive during this impossibly tiny window that will soon close forever? Why are “we” “here” “now”? The fact that we don’t have good answers to these questions is extremely fishy.

One thing we do know for sure is that nothing lasts. There’s a saying that on one’s deathbed, no one wishes they had spent more time in the office. We should endeavor to spend more time with friends and family and cherish those times together because we understand that nothing lasts. Terence McKenna explains this better than I can.

I recently had a psychedelic experience where I felt what it might be like to die. My humanity was stripped away. I had thoughts about what I “used to do” while I was alive, like walk around, work, exercise, and spend time with my family. The most surprising thing was that all my fear was stripped away. I knew I loved my family and friends and that was all that mattered – but I had none of the accompanying sadness, urgency, or fear.

I discovered that death isn’t scary at all. It can’t be – because your fear, which is part of your bodily humanity, is removed before your consciousness transitions to wherever it goes.  Any existential fear of death you may currently have is just a self-inflicted waste of time and energy.