This past week has been one of the most stressful weeks of the year, and that’s saying something for 2020. The lack of certainty behind the presidential election seemed at times unbearable, and I know I’m not alone when I say I spent an ungodly amount of time tuned into CNN. So, for that reason, let’s talk about something a little lighter.
Let’s talk about death.
Now, that’s not exactly an encouraging introduction. I recognize this is a terrible time for an existential crisis, but that might actually be the reason why we should talk about death right now. Death, by nature, is difficult to handle and even harder to approach in conversation.
This sentiment is completely normal. Our sense of fear evolved in order to keep us from death, so fearing death itself is quite literally the most advantageous adaptation.
Similarly, avoiding conversations about death is also advantageous, because those who routinely contemplate a subject tend to be the ones most associated with the topic. The combination of fearing the act of dying and avoiding any conversation about dying provides us with the best chances to continue living.
However, this idea also fosters an intense and never-ending panic over our mortality, and it can seriously impede us from living a fruitful life. After all, a long life means nothing if not a good one.
Let’s try to detach ourselves from the emotional overcast of thinking about death and just approach it as is, if only to enhance our emotional understanding of life.
When we start to unpack the details of death, we come to a surprising conclusion rather quickly: death really isn’t that bad.
What we arguably fear the most about death is the disappearing of our consciousness, but this fear is itself a conscious thought. The permanent loss of consciousness is actually rather meaningless, because as soon as we lose our conscious self, we lose our capacity to be aware of its loss.
So, at the moment of our death, when our biggest fear becomes reality and we lose our thinking self, we neither feel any fear nor do we even think about it.
This also goes for any other fear we may have about the sensation of death, including the fear of emotional or physical pain. At the moment of death, all our sensations cease to exist, and thus any painful process we could imagine would in fact feel like, well, nothing.
Additionally, we have no clear evidence the process of dying is any more or less painful than anything we’ve already lived through.
As psychiatrist Ralph Lewis writes, “rationally and from a medical point of view, there is no particular reason to suppose that the intensity of pain … from various causes of death is greater than the intensity of pain from various illnesses and injuries that we ourselves may already have previously experienced.”
Now, I need to make it clear this obviously is not meant to encourage us to seek a premature death. Please don’t do that.
I also don’t mean to downplay the agony of dealing with a loved one’s death. A solipsistic view — meaning we see ourselves as the only thing to exist — of our own mortality is one thing, but in many cases the death of someone close to us is actually much harder to process than dying ourselves.
Instead, I mean to approach our worry about death head-on. Death anxiety is believed to be at the core of mental illnesses such as panic and depressive disorders, according to research published by the National Library of Medicine, and even a mild fear of death can grow to be something much larger given our inability to hold a conversation about it.
Despite the natural inclination we have to avoid death — that’s a good thing, by the way — we can be so inclined to do so that we forget we’re alive.
Fearing death as an almighty, terrible being can cause incredible stress and sadness, but it can also prevent us from giving our all to the life we still have. We may want to avoid death itself, but to fear it is to focus on it, and that would defeat whatever purpose of life there is.
So, instead of fearing a future process, which is in fact not as bad as it may seem to be, we should glean all that we can from the current process of life.
And on that note, please enjoy this video of tortoises eating tiny pancakes.
