Maybe Death Isn’t an Atrocious Fate After all.
We should stop fearing death and accept it as the ultimate answer to all of our existential questions.
“I’ll become the best architect in the world.”
Whenever I remember my friend James, I picture him uttering these words while walking beside the water stream in our village.
During all my childhood, I enjoyed the company of one person in the whole town. He was the most ambitious and optimistic guy I’ve ever known. In a place where big dreams and higher aspirations were considered stupid fantasies, James was the only blooming flower in a vast field of withered saplings.
James was only a few years older than me, yet he had a strange aura of wisdom and knowledge about the world. He understood his circumstances and dedicated all his time to his future goals.
In the summertime, when everyone wanted to travel and go to the beach, James worked every day in a local workshop to make some extra cash and save it for the architecture school. He belonged to a middle-class family with four siblings, so his father couldn’t afford his education. Yet, he never complained or dwelled over their financial struggle and decided to rely on himself.
One day, I was walking back home when I noticed a large crowd around James’ workshop. I ran to the swarm and learned that a young teenager died from an electric shock. I didn’t want to believe that James was indeed the victim of that terrible misfortune. So I stood there on tenterhooks waiting for his appearance. After several minutes, James finally came out. He came out on a long orange spinal board wrapped inside a vacuum mattress.
Someone turned on the slow-motion mode. I couldn’t move my limbs and felt bewildered by two contradictory feelings. The despair of losing the only real friend I had in a world full of fake emotions and attachments, and the amazement of watching a fresh corpse for the first time in my life. A corpse that once belonged to a living person who had emotions, dreams, and cognition. A person who, less than 1hour ago, didn’t know he was living his last moments in this enthralling reality.
I was following the board with my eyes before I caught sight of James’ father. He stood gazing at his son like a soulless vessel. I was 13 back then, so I couldn’t imagine the melancholy of losing one’s son. A person you brought to life, nurtured and raised for 15 years.
Years went on, and we all resumed our lives except for James. He had several plans for his future and never foresaw anything disrupting his journey. This suddenness of death is frightening and petrifying. He never sends any warning letters before knocking on your door. And ready or not, he’ll perform his duty and snatch you out of existence.
As much as I hate losing a dear friend, his story will forever remain my ultimate motivation in life. By recalling my memories with James and how his adventure concluded before even starting, I recognize how fragile and vulnerable we are as a species. We get cocky, overconfident, and think we’re dominating the universe. And forget about the inevitable cessation of our journey on this planet.
James’s short story holds enough wisdom and insight to make us rethink our perceptions and current lifestyles. Watching a 15 years old boy leave this world by a misfortune out of his control shows you that the laws of nature don’t care about your age, wealth, or achievements.
Everything that has a beginning has an ending. And what happens in between bears a significant value only when you’re conscious to experience it.
It’s a roller coaster of mixed-up feelings and emotions. We go through happiness and sadness, anxiety and serenity, but death teaches us to appreciate every moment and only see the glass half full.
The death of someone we cared for and loved could be a devastating and tragic event. And mourning over the loss of those relationships is only natural and expected. But they also teach us valuable lessons about the nature of our existence in this reality. They show us how eventually, we’re all going to die. And how our best strategy is to reach that moment satisfied with the journey we had and free from any regrets and remorses.
Life is like walking through a minefield. We try to avoid the obvious traps, but we never know when the hidden ones will explode. Yet, that’s the beauty of this adventure. The zest of walking through that field while meeting new people and pursuing meaningful ambitions exceeds the terror of stamping on a hidden mine.
People are always in search of motivation and inspiration to change their lives and improve their conditions. Yet, they somehow ignore the best source of motivation available around us. And it’s free.
Every death occurring on the planet should exhibit the fact that time is a scarce resource. That the moment we’re born, the hourglass sand has already started flowing. And if we’re lucky enough to have a roof on our heads, food on our table, and freedom to decide on our own, we’d better show nature our gratitude by making the best of our lives and never wasting any precious second of our running out time.
In the end, this is only one point of view about the relationship between death and life. Perhaps when I was standing outside the workshop staring at James’ corpse, someone else in the crowd was witnessing the same incident but having an entirely different set of revelations. Perhaps a third person didn’t even care or elaborate the event in his mind. And perhaps James’ mother, who was weeping far away from the scene, was consoling herself by believing she will reunite with her beloved child in heaven.
The frightening ambiguity of death forces people to cling to any solacing hypothesis about the afterlife. It’s difficult to perceive the idea that we don’t know what happens to our consciousness after death. That maybe there is no spiritual purpose for our birth and death. And that we’re the ones who give value and context to our temporary habitation of this planet.
Everyone has the freedom to elucidate his existence the way he likes it. You might even ignore it if you want. Most people do. But we ought to find our peace with one fact. The fact that death is probably the endgame, the final chapter of all our stories, and the only closure we could ever have.
