This question of self deception surrounds every
aspect of our lives. We try to deceive ourselves about
every aspect of our lives. From birth to death.
We try to deceive ourselves with by our engagement or lack
therein of life. We try to deceive ourselves with our attempts to
hide from ourselves with such tactics as our materialism and our
refusal to publicly discuss such taboo matters as death, suicide,
sacrifice, the reason for our existence both individually and collectively.
We won’t embrace one of the major things that happen to all living things
and that is death. I will die. You will die. Simple as that and no amount
hiding as we so well hide, will change that fact. Why won’t we talk about it.
In part, we don’t talk about it because people get anxious about death.
I say good, a little anxiety won’t kill you… a little anxiety/death humor,
you gotta love it. Anyway, the fact still remains, why won’t you talk about death?
Does it make you uncomfortable, good, does it make your mate uncomfortable, good,
we should be talking about things that make us uncomfortable, anxious, because
we are uncomfortable with them and we should actually become comfortable with
talking about taboo subjects like death and the why of life. However we don’t
have to discuss these matters in terms of religion which is another taboo subject.
Death is a matter of fact topic because it will happen to each and everyone of us.
Denial is not a river in Egypt, you cannot deny your way out of dying. It will happen
as surely as puberty and old age. You cannot avoid it or escape it. One day the sun will
rise and I won’t be around to see it. As I am an atheist, I don’t have heaven or hell,
immortality or the sin of guilt to see me on my way. I die. the end.
I have no afterlife to comfort me and I see that as a good thing. Because
it helps me not take life for granted. We should be focused on this life, not
the next because there is no guarantee as to there being a next life but as long
as you’re alive, that there is a here and now. Death is a way of focusing one
on the moment, this very current moment. You are alive, reading this.
That counts for something, counts for something very important. You exists.
You have choices, options to act which is freedom. You can take off all your clothes
and run around the block for that is part of your options, part of your freedom.
As I can barely run anymore, I won’t be opting to run around the block naked,
beside the town’s police station is the next block over from where I live.
Once you are dead, you no longer have the naked option or any other option
available to you. You are dead… your options, your choices have ended.
To embrace death as Christians have is to embrace nihilism, for what is
nihilism? The negation of human beings and their values… and what is death?
a negation of human beings. Death is nihilism. and our modern age
embraces nihilism as its premier ideology. Our pursuit of profits/money
is nihilism as the pursuit of profits/money is a negation of human beings
and their values. Our public budgets are moral documents and it is
clear from our public documents that we embrace the concept of
our society being martial, being militaristic. A huge chunk of our federal
budget is devoted to defense and security. That is a an application of
our values to our public budget. We put money into that we value
and we don’t value old people or young people or health care or
nature or art or women or minorities… we put our values into our budget
and that budget supports our nihilistic values, our martial values,
our militaristic values. People claim this is a Christian nation and
yet we don’t support those values within our budget. We support
militaristic values which are anti-Christian, as least according to Jesus.
Jesus said to love one another and every aircraft carrier we build
goes against what Jesus said.
We have abandon Jesus with our actions, now let us finish the task
and abandon him with our words. We must engage in discussion about
death, not in terms of a religious context, but in the natural light
of the fact we are all going to die and what does that mean?
Occasionally, just occasionally, I wonder how I am going to die?
Will it be quick or slow and how? Am I going to be hit by a bus
or just die a natural death of old age. I am not anxious when I
think these things, I am just wondering. It is in the same vein of
when am I going to retire, at this point never, anyway, where will
we live, what will my life be like once I finally retire? Questions about
death fit into the same category as these questions and they don’t cause
anxiety or make me anxious… I am just thinking about the future.
I am 59 and death for me is far closer then age 30. I wonder, is
death just like falling asleep…
“To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death
what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life”
I ask the question, what happens when I die… and I don’t feel anxiety
or fear in asking that question, I am just wondering.
Kropotkin