The Human Condition of Being Mortal
Life ends.
The goal of this article is to sprout inspiration in others to live more deliberately.
(Feel free to skip around!)
1. Early Thoughts
When I was much younger, I habitually questioned those around me about the meaning of life and related ideas about our existence. Maybe it was the way that I worded my questions, or rather, that these types of inquiries were not very common for someone my age.
It was actually quite funny what people came up with at times.
Uniformly, everyone gave me arbitrary and fictitious-like answers. Never really anything worth thinking about.
And so, I made sure to find others that were willing to conversate with more patience and honesty.
I had many long conversations with some of my friends, but mostly with my brother. Some of the conversations were very useful. At least in terms of figuring out what exactly it was that I was after.
I slowly went through different ideas that I had come up with, but there was still a long line of questions awaiting the assortment.
2. Gradual Learning
As months passed, I learned a lot from different online resources and was referred to follow along with many distinguished readings to learn from.
Gradually, I began picking up different books from the library about all sorts of topics relating to the philosophy of death and revolving concepts.
It seemed that all my past interests layered around this type of content. So this is where I began. I wrote down all the ideas I came across so that I wouldn’t lose them, and in return, I was able to better understand them.
Besides playing video games all the time, this was what I put most of my free time into (free will & determinism were also some of my favorite concepts during that time).
Then after some thinking, I figured that my desire to pursue this whole thing was really only fueled by a single lingering thought of which I never let go. An idea that was fabricated by fear, or some type of wishful thinking, of not wanting the whole experience to come to an end. I found it better to write most of these thoughts down, so they wouldn’t just keep coming and going.
If nothing is waiting for us after death, then what precisely is the meaning of being alive?
When I think about dying, I get lost in defining what I see. Because what I try to depict lies in a far-reaching realm of nothingness.
I know that I want to keep living, but how can I find meaning in the experience, if I too, take part in a meaningless world?
— I wrote.
I thought that if I better understood the mentality of those who lived before me, I could somehow make my life more worthwhile. I was sure these same thoughts were shared across history by many others, so they must have found something I could not. I guess the goal was to at least obtain the feeling of being moderately satisfied before my life would finally come to an end.
Moreover, I knew that fear only led to impatience and obstacles in life. So this only motivated me to keep going on this small journey to somehow embrace this common fear and move on from it.
3. Across Time
Being an atheist, the idea of death is quite straightforward. Everyone says it in a different way, but we all tend to describe the same idea. Once the flame goes out, it goes out, and that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was able to switch my mindset for a while, from seeing death as a setback to seeing death as an inspiration as a sort of urgency, which allowed me to concentrate on my main aspirations and values in life. Like my family, my hobbies, my friends, etc.
In the process, I learned that the whole world had its answers; religion, parents, peers, the internet, everyone seemed to have an opinion or answer about it. Though, everything always led back to people finding closure and not really solving the main concern.
It only seemed that everyone was too afraid of death, just like me, and that there was a sort of collaborative movement that continued across time to avoid the discussion of death. Maybe even to prevent its fear, and somehow encourage a “better quality of life” for everyone, and I somehow understood.
Yet, it didn’t feel right.
I learned from my readings that for many years it was impossible to speak about the idea of life after death without creating some kind of story to prevent its full embracing.
4. Understanding
I understood the objective purpose of death, like how the food chain must run appropriately or how it is the byproduct of evolution and whatnot.
Nevertheless, the subjective meaning was where my actual curiosity lingered.
During the middle of my wander when I was around twelve years old, I came upon this story on the internet, inside a philosophy forum, that tried to explain why death was a good thing. It changed a lot of what I felt back then and helped me adopt a new and much better perspective.
I concluded that perhaps there was simply no answer and only an infinite amount of subjective interpretations.
Most of these interpretations were simple sayings or so-called pearls of wisdom that justified different ways of living with our mortality. However, these interpretations were ultimately embraced by others because they somehow came in at the right time, place, or in the right way into their lives. It didn’t mean that they weren’t all meaningless or meaningful in their own right.
Logically, I realized that there was no certainty or type of solace that I could ever find. The only thing that I could ever do was to be satisfied with my complicated yet uncomplicated temporary existence. I can only live with courage and try to keep listening, considering, and learning from the words and ideas of others as I go.
That is all there is to it .
Death is unique in this way. We can interpret it however we like or not interpret it at all. Either one is absolutely okay.
Nowadays, I don’t fear death, if at all. I’m happy with the way my life is and the way I feel it will turn out. I know that at some point, my journey will end too (just like anything else that exists), and I can accept that.
5. Final Thoughts
My newfound perspective understands that death can help carve a path between all the worries and obstacles in life. It can serve as a reminder of how valuable life is and keep our attention away from unimportant things in life.
It may be scary or sad to know or think about the idea that we may at some point, also disappear just like everything else in the universe, or even that our consciousness may at some point, drown in that pool of nothingness that we can’t really picture. But we have to realize that our thoughts don’t change the reality in which we live and that if we have a choice between dreading our life or looking forward to it, it’s better and wiser to pick the latter. Fear is not worth our time. We were lucky enough to come into existence, so we might as well appreciate this limited opportunity that we have.
In any case, death is not a punishment or a limitation of life.
Instead, death is an opportunity to experience and to have desires in life; if we lived forever, at some point, there wouldn’t be much desire for anything.
Life’s finitude provides us with the opportunity to seek those things that make us happy; this also means that death does not have to be meaningful if we do not want it to be. All we have to focus on is the things that truly make it worth it.
Evidently, to those that seek meaning in all this:
Satisfaction should come from the limited time that we are provided in this world; or from the idea of creating your own meaningful purpose that brings comfort to your life.
Life without death simply can’t have meaning.
We must try to develop a good sense of mental resilience throughout our lives, and help others adapt to the many stresses that life’s experiences can bring. There are many people’s lives out there that could really benefit from a simple conversation about this. So let’s try to be proactive as much as we can, whenever we can, to make a small difference.
There is a sense of presence and appreciation that can only be gained when we fully become submerged and aware of our surroundings.
The present moment is our moment.
