On life and death
[Content warning: death, suicide, hope]
Look, I do not want to die. If I were on a road and there were a truck bearing down on me, I’d get out of the way. If I was diagnosed with a terrible disease, I’d get treated. If I came upon a bear while walking in the wilderness, I’d do whatever I thought maximized my chances of survival.
And, like many, I fear death. I hope to continue to fear death! Not fearing death would mean losing an important source of information — specifically the source of information that tells me when something I am doing is endangering my life. If I lost this, I would be less able to take care of my life. I would be a like a person who has lost all tactile sensation in their hands and so doesn’t realize that their own hand is burning on the stove.
But what I do not want is to react instinctively to the fear of death. When I feel fear, I aspire to bring all my wisdom to bear in deciding what to do, using the fear together with the many other relevant bits of sense data, including memories, thoughts, and so on. If I need to walk through a dark forrest at night in order to get home, then I am right to be afraid, but I may also be quite right in deciding to go ahead and walk through. Reacting instinctively to the fear of death would mean instinctively avoiding the forest, perhaps without even deliberately making the choice not to think about it. This is unconsciousness, and I look forward to having less of it in my life.
Suppose I reach old age, and that I contract a disease. I would want to treat it. But suppose that the treatment fails, and it becomes clear that I most have just a short time left, and that I face a choice between staying in hospital and continuing treatment in desperation, or going home. I aspire to face such decisions with clarity and equinamity, deliberately weighing up the pros and cons. This is easy to _imagine_ doing, but when such a decision really needs to be made, one must not instinctively flinch away from looking death in the mouth. To flinch away is to choose always to stay in the hospital, refusing to look clearly at the decision at all. Depending on circumstances, this might in fact be the right decision, but I do not want to make such a decision without clearly looking at the situation and consciously weighing the tradeoffs.
For this reason I hope to face my fear of death now, before I am thrown into the teeth of a soul-wrenching dilemma. Facing my fears means that I look squarely at my fears, and learn to make decisions that incorporate their intelligence, together with all the other wisdom I can muster. It does not mean that I stop fearing death: quite the opposite.
Facing my fear of death means letting go of life, in order to live more fully. If I cannot contemplate death, then in moments where the possibility of death becomes apparent, I will make instinctive decisions, which means not being truly conscious of the decisions, or not being truly alive to what’s actually happening within me. In order to contemplate death, I suspect that I need to let go of my attachment to life. Not my will to live, but my tight tense clenched grip on life that tells me to choose life preservation above all else. There is much else worth choosing over mere life preservation, as the preceding paragraph demonstrates.
I imagine that in suicide, one suddenly lets go of life preservation, and for a fleeting moment is completely free. Unfortunately for many, this is shortly followed by death, which is a terrible tragedy and very much worth avoiding. If only one could let go of the attachment to life preservation without actually dying. The courage required to truly face death may be equal in magnitude (though ever so different in kind) to the courage required commit suicide.
There is something very much worth avoiding in suicide: namely the intention (and sometimes the actuality) of ending one’s own life. But there is something deeply true in recognizing the untenability of living with such tightly held attachments. Perhaps it is a painful end to a romantic relationship. Perhaps it is unending loneliness. Whatever it is, the suicidee recognizes the impossibility of continuing to hold on, and at some level sets out to let go. Unfortunately, suicide is a terrible way to accomplish this, since it leaves so little time to enjoy the freedom that follows. But the instinct to let go is a good one — and it can be manifested in much healthier forms.
Do you feel some discomfort just now as you’re reading this? Are you perhaps labeling this discomfort as concern for me, the author, and my possible suicidal tendencies? Well I am not suicidal, so please put this possibility out of your mind. And now, reading this last sentence, is your discomfort still present? I put to you, if you are indeed feeling discomfort just now, that you are right at this moment in the grips of your own fear of death. Take a moment to close your eyes and focus in on it. Not to overcome it or defeat it, but just to begin to know it. Do that now.
