"We move between two darknesses. The two entities who might enlighten us, the babe and the corpse, cannot do so."We are fixated on the concept of death because it is a mystery to us and therefore scary. As humans we like to pretend to be in control; we plan and organize our lives in an attempt to convince ourselves that we have the power and ability to make those things happen. When something out of our plan happens we say, "Oh well- we can't control everything" when really we accept that we cannot control anything. But death... death is the most alluding thing of all because we know so little about it that we don't even know how to pretend to control it.
Some people approach it with faith- taking religious dogmas for fact and believing in a beautiful afterlife or reincarnation. Others say there is nothing, just a hole in the ground and that is that. But the thing both of these groups have in common is their ability to be influenced by death- whatever it may be.
I must say, I had always dreaded death. I was raised in a Catholic household and grew up believing there were three options for me once I died: heaven, purgatory, or hell. And which place I would be sent to depended on my actions in this life. I have always had a vigor for life and my "bucket list" is about 30 versts long, so I clung to the notion of an afterlife furiously. However, I recently had an experience that completely affirmed my belief; I died.
Okay, so I didn't heart-stops-beating-face-turns-blue die, but I certainly thought I did. I was at my friend's house "opening the doors in my head" when suddenly I was pulled into a vivid action sequence; I had walked into my house and flipped on the lights to see two men in front of me. They were dressed in black and looked as shocked to see me as I was to see them. Before I could take another step or form a word with my mouth, the man nearest to me raised a gun level with my head and pulled the trigger.
The first thing I saw was his eyes; they switched from shocked to determined in an instant. And in that same instant I saw the bullet spiral out of the pistol's barrel and come towards me. I felt it pierce my skull and sink into my brain tissue. I felt my body go rigid in fear and then limp as I was hit. I felt my lungs deflate and my knees give out as I slowly crumpled to the floor, and at the same time I felt myself - very much "alive" - move towards something else. Something that I had never seen before but that, upon looking directly at it, I realized had always been there: like a door I had never opened in a house I had lived in my whole life. And I moved towards that, knowing that it would be pleasant and warm and forever; the "afterlife."
Now, though this "experience" was entirely in my mind, it stuck with me. Only a few days later I was rafting, got thrown out, pulled under, and caught in a tangle of roots under the water. I struggled to swim against the strong current, but it pushed me into a web of roots that I could not escape. I thought to myself, "so this is it.. this is how I am going to die." And as I felt myself weaken, I felt that same presence as before. There was the door. Right there. And I would be okay in there; it would be painless and pleasant and warm. There was nothing to fear. And as I realized that I realized that I might as well keep living then. For what should I be afraid of in life if I know that at the end I have this place I will certainly arrive at, and it is not painful or scary at all?? The answer: nothing. Right then an arm wrapped around me and I was pulled to the surface; my friend had jumped out after me and saved me.
The conclusion I have then come to is that death is not painful. Life is. We create all these rules and boundaries and behavioral modes to follow, and we force ourselves to do things we don't want to do. We get high-stress jobs to make more money so that we can acquire things that will make us more likable to the people around us. We measure success in terms of dollar bills. We wash our clothes after each individual use. And what for? What are we saying? Or NOT saying?
What would you do if you had nothing to fear?
I've been having a lot of dreams about the end of the world lately. And in last night's version it was ending due to nuclear warfare. My family and I ran into the mountains to survive off the land. All was going well and we suddenly discovered a cabin equipped with an oven. For some reason, I had my fly rod in the kitchen and was casting while my mother made up dinner. She opened the oven door right as I released my line and it fell onto the door. I pulled it in as fast as I could, but the leader had melted entirely; my line was rendered useless. I held my worthless rod in my hands and cried; I had been using it as the main means of our survival and there was no way I could get replacement leader. It was the end. Death was imminent. And I was afraid.
I woke from this dream upset, but as I thought it over in my mind I realized how silly it was: dying because I cast my fishing line on the oven. I also realized how silly another thing was: death. It is the one thing we can be sure will happen in life, so for all of our desire for control and plans, death should be the most comforting concept of all. Tis but a tangle of melted leader.
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