The Reality of Death

Death.  The final chapter.  The bitter reality in every man and woman's life that always seems too far away to even think about.  Regardless of who you are, be you young, old, rich, or poor, death will catch up to all of us in the end.  But why is it that death is so little talked about?  Why is it that one of the only certainties in every person's life is such a taboo subject?  Perhaps it is because nobody wants to come to terms with the sad truth that nothing anybody does can stop it from happening.  But what if this sad notion is not such a bad thing?
Everything we do as people in our lives is based on the fact that we only have a limited time to get through everything expected out of a fulfilling life, so why does the fact that this routine ends scare us all so much?  Yes, it is a terrifying notion that one day we could be here and the next day we could be gone, but what would really be the point of living if we never ran out of time?  Every morning, we as a species wake up and go through our day trying to achieve that next "milestone" in life so we can see what we want to see, feel how we want to feel, or get what we want to get before we inevitably run out of time.  Mortality is what makes life worth living because without it, there would be no point to anything we do.  
If we all could just live forever, what would be the point of working everyday, going to the gym, staying healthy, being a good person, or even just getting out of bed in the morning?  Nobody would care about anything because everybody would be able to do anything whenever they wanted.  The fact that your days are numbered is not a curse, but a blessing.  The idea of death is not a reason to stop living, it is the main force driving each of us to keep living.     

      

Comments

  1. GideonJanuary 18, 2019 at 5:15 AM

    "The fact that your days are numbered is not a curse, but a blessing." We live our lives because we know there is an endgame. This is the end of the line, for all things living. The reality of death makes our life worth living. Death is the greatest single fate we can all boast to face one day. Immortality is a curse in itself. If we had all the time in the world, we will procrastinate, make bad decisions, wrong lots of people, and most of all be filled with greed. Life will loose it's value if we are not fighting for it. We begin to see the value of things when we loose them, and so is life. Death serves as a constant reminder that your time here on earth is limited. Death and life are intertwined, because in a sense we live to die. The notion that we might die at a time not said, or predetermined, makes us work hard to stay healthy and to accomplish something. The truth of the matter is, Death compliments life and vice versa. Death is the only thing that makes us want to live. In a way, death is our single greatest motivation to achieve something and enjoy what little time we have on this earth. We may not know when we die, but we know we will die, so why be scared of it. The key to living is first, accepting that our lives may end anytime. Our numbered days really are a blessing and not a curse.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cincere EngramJanuary 18, 2019 at 2:38 PM

    Death is a blessing because immortality in general is not fun. It makes sense to say that death is a blessing because it takes away from the stresses of daily life. At the same time, death is very stressful because the biggest question is what will happen to us when our physical being is no longer existent on Planet Earth? Death is inevitable and it's been that way since the very beginning of time. Living forever does not guarantee any reward or satisfaction especially if you are an individual who is very unhappy. If life were endless, death would still exist because the human breed will abuse the resources and deplete them all, therefore being a contributor to death, so in that case the concept of immortality or "endless life".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Deborah Adekunle-OdeleyeJanuary 19, 2019 at 2:25 AM

    This piece is professionally done and it is obvious that you put a lot of thought to it my only gripe is that I feel you overrated death impact on life decisions. Your average person does not think about death in their day to day life because they are just trying to get by. As noted in Saunders “Lincoln in The Bardo ” most of the death characters had regrets about their lives and wanted to redress it but they couldn't. Due to the fact that their death was sudden or they were in denial about their immortality.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caitlin Doughty - Why are you afraid of death

Doughty created a video about common fears of death and how to find comfort in them. The way to get over death is to pinpoint the fear. One of the common fears of death relates to the fear of regretting experiences or not experiencing certain events. This fear is why I’m scared to die at a young age. Being able to look back on life and remembering experiences I have gone through and thinking about how full my life was is the goal. As silly as it sounds, I want to be able to tell stories of silly times I spent with friends or the moments of impulsivity that creates a story. Knowing that I have roughly 60 years of life to go and that I’ve lived ¼ of my life already, adds to the fear of dying young. In those years to come I know I will experience some great and horrible things but I still want to experience them. Dying young would end the cycle of being able to experience new moments and having stories to tell. It sounds selfish but I look at every moment has if it could be a story t...
Read more

Pros and Cons of Immortality

Immortality is ability to live forever. People who are immoral will never have to experience death because they have an eternal life. Thinking this, some people might think that is something they want because we will have an unlimited amount of time. We won't have to worry about death because it will never come. However, being immortal isn't as good as we make it out to be.  When making decisions, there are consequences in the decisions we make because we are picking one path and letting go of the other. You won’t get to experience the other path because you chose not to follow it and it messes with the one you did. With immortality, Immortals won’t have to make difficult decisions in their life because they are aware that they have an unlimited amount of time. People who are immortal can pick to do one thing and have the time to also achieve the other because they will live forever. The problem with this is that there is no significance people who are immortal have the abil...
Read more

confusing souls for personality

When talking about death it is not uncommon to mention souls and believing in souls. In A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality written by John Perry, the characters Gretchen Weirob and Sam Miller are in debate relating to the proof of personal identity and sameness of soul. Weirob states her opinion that there is no personal identity for the reason that there is no proof stating we hold one soul. Miller disagrees saying that there is no proof of human bodies holding multiple souls. I agree with Miller and his argument from the first chapter of the book. There are ways to identify people and objects by characteristics. Without the characteristics then how can someone identify a person or object with no visual aid? Agreeing with Miller, the idea of having one soul in our body for our entire life is engraved in our minds. Having Weirob question that idea leaves me with more questions. A part in the book that stood out the most to me is the argument by Weirob saying “...t...
Read more