Death is a natural part of life. To live is to die. It is unavoidable. Inevitable. Immanent. And we must accept this discomforting fact in the amor fati tradition—with enthusiasm.
We must face this reality squarely, without a rebelling heart. Death is not the ultimate evil. It is not something to be feared and avoided at all costs. Death holds no terrors. In fact, sometimes death can be a deliverance from pain and suffering and therefore, something to be yearned for.
We will all die. That is a fact (for now). We will all at some stage in the future go to sleep, never to awaken again. But death itself is nothing to fear. Ceasing to exist is indistinguishable from being unborn. Subjectively, it is indistinguishable from deep and dreamless sleep. It is peaceful.
Life is a precious gift we were all fortunate enough to receive. Since the beginning (the big bang), our universe has been expanding and evolving, increasing in complexity, guided by the second law of thermodynamics.
Then, suddenly, after many billions of years, as if by a magnificent accident, we come into existence from nonexistence. But only fleetingly. Living our lives, for a little while, on a mote of dust in an unremarkable part of the universe. And then we will return to our state of nonexistence for an even longer time in the lifetime of the universe.
Entropy is always victorious. We will all eventually decay into disorder, into a state of equilibrium with our surrounds. We shall return to the earth from which we came, resting indistinguishably from the plants that once nourished us. Entropy is the ultimate enemy and will not only consume us, or our solar system (in about another 5 billion years), but eventually, everything in the entire universe.
Everything is slowly heading toward atomic chaos, toward total disorder, with all matter and energy uniformly distributed throughout the universe. Everything is ultimately a victim to the supreme power of the second law. This is scientific fact. But it is not to be feared.
Our eventual doom takes nothing away from the brilliance and splendor of our ephemeral time of conscious existence. All our precious moments and experiences are forever immortalized in the very structure of the four-dimensional block universe at a specific location in space and time. Each moment is immortalized. Each moment exists for all eternity.
Our incredibly brief appearance in the universe and visit to planet Earth makes life, with all its experiences, so much more precious. It makes our triumphs so much more meaningful. Our loves so much more wonderful. It fills each experience, each moment, with so much more awe and wonder. And appreciation.
We have only this one short life. This one short cameo in the universal drama. There is no second chance. No afterlife. No second life beyond this one. Therefore, it is important to concern oneself not about life after death, but rather about life before death.
There is no utopia with virgins lying waiting on beds made of clouds on the other side of death. One should not minimize the value of this life because of a futile hope for something better hereafter. That is an utterly appalling thought. One must liberate oneself from the (nonexistent) utopic beyond and open one’s eyes to the present.
Anyone that rationally interrogates the idea of an afterlife for the briefest of moments will realize that it is totally nonsensical. There is no immaterial and permanent self (soul) that can continue any form of existence detached from the physical. The essence of any person is not captured in an immaterial soul or even in the specific atoms that make up their bodies, but rather in their idiosyncrasies, their quirks, their knowledge, memories, and personalities. And these are captured in a physical substance, in biological tissue, in the unique wiring patterns of their brain.
Information is always instantiated in a physical substance. A person cannot escape their physical instantiation (the brain). Death for us humans is nothing different than death for a dog, a cockroach, or a tomato plant. It is the cessation of bodily function, including consciousness. It is an elimination of order. An elimination of the unique information that makes a person who they are. It is a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. We don’t imagine a tomato plant enjoying eternal life in tomato heaven. And our fate is the same as the tomato plant when our information-carrying substrate lies rotting six feet under.
When one dies, the particles and molecules making up their body will return to the world, reconfigured in many other instances, both animate and inanimate. Some particles will continue a new life in the foot of an elite soccer player, in the coffee mug of a future novelist, or in the skin of a tomato slice on a sandwich. One’s basic building blocks will live on and have many more lives, as they have already had.
But a person is more than mere particles. The essence of a person is something we struggle to define, something that is unique to them and therefore irreparable. It is captured in the way they smile; the way one eyebrow raises when they are confused; the way their tongue peeks out between their lips when they concentrate; the indistinguishable hand gestures they make when annoyed; always having the need to start a deep conversation in the middle of the movie; not wanting their vegetables to touch the meats; their laugh; their walk; their stare. It is all their peculiarities. All their memories and knowledge. We will all eventually perish, but we don’t have to stop living in the minds and hearts of our loved ones.
One can prolong their life beyond their own physical body by making forcible and lasting impressions in the memories and hearts of others. But more importantly, in the minds of others. We are all, to some extent, amalgamations of the voices, influences, and habits of all the people that we encountered during our lives. And so, one can live on through others, for many generations, by making positive and lasting contributions to their lives. By passing down one’s knowledge and skills and quirks. By touching the lives of others in meaningful ways. There can be no greater eulogy for any person than to have his or her essence continue down generations because of its enduring and profound impact.
So, go out and live with heart. Find what matters most and dedicate one’s life to it. Live a life of meaning. Make an impact; make a difference, even if it is in the life of a single starfish.
It is not so much that our time here on Earth is short, but rather that we waste a lot of it. So, make the sunny days plentiful and the dark days few. Don’t let the sands of time slip through one’s fingers. Don’t delay till tomorrow, Monday, next week, next month, or next year. Live now.
This life, this moment, now, is all we know, and all we have for certain. Enjoy each breath, each sound, each mundane task as if it is one’s last. (It might be.) And remember, from a cosmic perspective, looking down from the edges of the Milky Way, nothing in an individual life is of any great importance, whether fame and riches or failure and misery. The only thing that really matters are the experiences.
We are the universe experiencing itself. The outcome of life is not important. What is important are the individual moments, the individual experiences. Focus on the richness and fullness to be found in every moment, in the immediate present. There is beauty, complexity, profoundness, wonder, and awe to be found in every experience, sometimes more so in moments of misery and suffering. Live in the present. Invest all passion and fervor in each moment. Each moment is an eternity captured in space-time.
Time is our most valuable commodity. One must not deprive oneself of the joys and meaning of this life due to an obsession with death or an afterlife. Fill one’s life with an abundance of novel, meaningful, and pleasurable experiences.
Research suggests that the brain calculates the passage of time based on events, and a life packed with new and meaningful events will seem longer and more fulfilling. When on one’s deathbed, reflecting on one’s life, best not to look back at a list of regrets, but instead at a fulfilled life overflowing with rich experiences.
Live sincerely. Live in the present moment. Always be kind and considerate of others. Be decent. We are all connected, living in a complex, deterministic, and interdependent universe. Each action has an effect in this large, chaotic system. Each word spoken has a remote consequence in another’s life, in tomorrow’s governmental policies, in next week’s weather, in faraway galaxies outside our Milky Way. Live life as if it matters. It does.
Further Reading
Internet Resources:
LitHub.com – stoics about death
OrionPhilosophy – how stoics view death
1000WordPhilosophy – is death bad?
Stanford Philosophy – Death
Books worth reading:
Death (The Art of Living) by Todd May
On The Shortness Of Life by Seneca
