Chapter 158: Remember we were angels?

Maybe we were angels before we were born. Or  made from earth.

Before I continue, the following need only apply to monotheistic religions.

Was reading Mind Your Body the other day and they have this four week column about death and a human’s greatest fear being death for some and this is argued to be irrational.

Honestly, no matter how much one says that he is not afraid of dying, he actually is. Especially for me, I come from two viewpoints. From one viewpoint, as a Muslim, I understand that death is part and parcel with life and after you have lived your life, you’ll like just flop like a fish and die. It’s transition that we all cannot avoid so we might as well accept that right?

However, there’s this other side of me, so afraid of dying. There were times when I was sleeping and I would feel suffocating and try to take a breath but couldn’t and thoughts about everyone start floating into my head, it doesn’t happen anymore but I am very afraid of leaving all that I have built in this short 16 years behind.

In the article in Mind Your Body, the American Philosopher Tom Morris described that there are four kinds of fear of death.

First, there is the fear of the process of dying.

Secondly, there is the fear of punishment.

Thirdly, there is the fear of the unknown.

Fourthly, there is fear of annihilation.

The first describes how we all fear how we would die. How WOULD we die? Would it be a a painful death, a slow agonizing one or a quick one caused by a cardiac arrest or a gunshot? The problem lies not in the pain and agony suffered but by the dying minutes or seconds in which one would say life would be a flashback as the remembrance of memories serve as the Greater pain then that of your wound.

The second is the fear of punishment. We all fear about how in the afterlife, God would punish us and deal what He wants to deal about how we’ve lived our life as we be punished for our sins and be rewarded for our good. And we all know, (monotheistic or not) that hell is not a very nice place. It’s very hot and stuffy, oh not only that, pain sucks.

Thirdly, is the fear of the unknown whereby after death, do we all really know what is going to happen. Would there really be an afterlife or reincarnation or some void whereby everyone is or are we all in some matrix-esque fabricated reality, programmes plugged in never to wake up but only at death. We do not know if we still continue our existence after death or do we? Not knowing something has always made Man fearful.

The fourth is the most important of all and forms the basis of the rest, is the fear of being destroyed and the absolute. This is whereby once death arrives, knocking at your door (let’s hope it’s not Peter Griffin, hahahaa) life would be over as it is and with it, smiles, laughter, twinkling of eyes, the heart, the love, the vicissitudes all gone within an instant when you finally close your eyes and close the curtains from the sky.

Yes, these fears are founded but irrational in a sense as not knowing something should not make us fearful of it but receptive and accepting of a life cycle. Man lives, and man dies. In the words of 300, “Tell them about how I died at your side my king” and King Leonidas answers “I shall tell them how you lived”.

The article also quoted Seneca, a roman politician and philosopher (WOW, a politician who actually thought) who put very eloquently how it was irrational to fear death:

“Would you not think him an utter foll who wept because he was not alive a thousand years ago? And is he not just as much of a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is all the same; you will not be, and were not.”

We do not think about what we were before we were born( born means the egg being fertilized and the foetus really), who had implanted us in there and is there a higher being responsible for gifting us life? Yes, a man would be a fool to think about his past but a bigger fool to think about the ever looming future.

Like, I hope I didn’t make you scared.

Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.
But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.
There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,
No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.
All we who are dead below
Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else.
I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,
Lest even while dead I seem loquacious to you.