death. i'm not for it.

It's Mr. Death. He's here about the reaping?

I know you’re going to have a difficult time accepting this, but I just don’t like the idea of dying. Nope. I don’t like. I don’t like it at all. To steal from Michael Shermer, when it comes to the idea of an afterlife, I’m all for it. But, being an atheist, I really don’t believe there is anything after this life. Death is the end of the journey.

And that sucks.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t suck enough for me to start believing in an afterlife. Besides what would an eternal afterlife be like? How long would it take for it to get boring? The concept of heaven I hear of seems as though there wouldn’t be much to keep me occupied. I suppose worshiping the alleged head man would keep me somewhat busy, but for how long?

So what would be a cool afterlife for me? I think that the best thing would be an afterlife in which time and space have no meaning. I could go anywhere and anywhen I want. I could explore the universe from end to end. I could witness any pre-historical, historical, and future event that grabs my fancy. And not just the history of earth, but the history of everywhere. Hell, I’ll have all eternity to deal with, so I’m sure it would keep me a little busier than some Stone Age deity or 72 virgins ever would.

Ah, if only.

It occurs to me as I reread what I’ve written so far that I hit on something that I believe is correct. Death, not the afterlife, is a state of being (can it be called that?) in which time and space are meaningless. At least it is to those who are dead. You see, they don’t exist. The dead can have no awareness of anything. The dead can’t even be aware they are dead. In a strange way there is a kind of comfort in that. In not existing, I mean.

Before you start thinking this is a suicide note, be assured I want to live as long as I possibly can. That is as long as my mind and body still work fairly well. I do think about dying frequently. It must have something to do with being middle-aged. I see funeral processions head by my office, located near a funeral home, and I often think, “There’s someone whose worries are over.”

Yep, I don’t like the idea of dying. We all have it coming. As I understand it, humans are the only living things on earth capable of contemplating their own death. Lucky us, eh? Too much time is spent not existing to worry about anything really. I try to remember that when get too hung up on my everyday worries.

Well. I try.