Our mortality

Wednesday, July 22 2009

Is Man’s fanaticism about immortality a product of their fear of death? Is everybody’s nonchalance about the inevitability of death an innate survival mechanism that ensures the existence of their own kind? After all, can one live always in light of one’s death? Consciousness is what that differentiates us from the other species. This ability to reflect, to make decisions not just on past experiences but also predicting the future is what that also let us perceive our imminent and inescapable end. Man’s desire to find purpose might be consequential of that. If so, it makes me wonder is religion, the willing embrace of the existence of the higher powers and beings part of Man’s willing self-delusion in order to find purpose and meaning in response to the knowledge of their own mortality.

I tried to look back on my life and reflect on the things I’ve done – my achievements, my social life, my attitude to work, to life and to friends. There’s always a certain sense of nostalgia, of regret, and even sorrow. Yet at the same time, there is always that harsh reminder that nothing I have done, nothing I have gained counts for anything in the future.

I remember I was fourteen when I came across Ecclesiastes in my bible study. There is something profound about the writer’s acknowledgement of the meaningless of life that struck me, a person who have started to question the purpose of life. As I grew up, it’s always the same harsh reality that claws of me – I could always look back on my own life to reflect, only to look ahead to see they are all so pointless.

Because the end of the road that I’m walking, no matter how I do it, is death. This fact, in face of all that mundane things that I spend already half my life doing (and probably the next half too), renders everything meaningless. How do you have aspirations when it doesn’t mean anything in the end, when you know that people’s memories of yourself isn’t worth crap when you are sixth feet under and even that cannot withstand the test of time, when the merciless hands of the clock sweep you into the back off their minds forever…

For atheists, there’s something horrifying about just disappearing from the world isn’t it? It’s like being deleted into oblivion. One moment you are there, and the next you are not. You don’t exist. You had existed, and now there’s just no you. For Christians or hell, whoever that believe that he or she will go to heaven and be good when he die, life on earth even means lesser isn’t it? Besides, like I always mentioned, there’s something about being sinless that worries me. Are we characterized by our own different degrees and types of selfishness? Isn’t that part of what that makes us different from the person besides us? For people who even believe in reincarnation, hell why worry about karma or whatsoever when you aren’t going to know it in your next life? You don’t even know you’ll remain the believer of the same faith.

When I look at the people around me, the people so hectic and busy with the hustle and bustle of life, the people so eager to climb up the career ladder, the people who plot and connive to be the next rulers and kings of the world, I wonder how thee reconcile this idea of deatht to their world view. (Maybe they just don’t.) When I look at the paranoia about the H1N1 flu, the millions of no ‘this’ and no ‘that’ for the sake of health, the gorging of multi-vitamins and other health supplements, I can’t help but ask what’s the great fuss about prolonging one’s life, or delaying one’s death, that everyone’s so obsessed about?

I have witnessed families of two, a mother and her child, in their seventies and nineties, and wonder if having long life is a road to happiness. I doubt there’s anything satisfying about outliving your son or daughter. There’s nothing to be proud of when you outlive your old friends and make it to the Guinness Book of Record, unless a heart-wrenching loneliness is something to be ecstatic for. I doubt there’s anything fun about living in idleness and physical weakness, with also a fast depleting bank account and mountain-high medical bills and probably 2 feet in the coffin already. The Hokkien call it ‘Tan Si’ or simply waiting to die.

When I was young, I used to believe that I could walk into a burning house to save people. As I grow older, I found out that I fear heights. I would tremble when I try to cross those dangling logs you see in adventure camps. Has my fear of heights anything to do with the fear of death? Do I really dare run into a burning house? Do I dare contemplate my own death? Maybe deep down, though I hate to admit it, I fear death too. Is my reason for living as simple as not wanting to die? Throughout my life, I have seeked purpose and meaning, but until now, I found not much answers and would choose to avoid them. I live from day to day, month to month, I just don’t look too far into the future, to the end everyone’s going as well. In the end, how different am I from the one who never once thought about it, how different am I from the animal who does not know about it?