A letter to a friend.
Dear -----,
So in the past year, your uncle died and a friend from school committed suicide. I am guessing that your uncle was of our parents' generation, and either slightly older or younger, but in poor health. Your friend from school was most likely clinically depressed and in an emotionally-cognitively extreme state. You have your parents' mortality on your mind, too, you've said. I'm guessing that is weighing very hard on you. You have mentioned many times that you want to be back near them--and I also suspect that you have some very mixed feelings about them, too, like any kid. You love them and you also wonder how your life will be different if you don't have to worry about disappointing them. I suspect you were also very afraid of what they thought about the problems you've had in recent years. You also said that you were, at times, afraid of death. You've certainly had a lot of time to think about death, and I can't imagine that your depression helped any.
I think, on the whole, death sucks. That said, I'm not afraid of it. It makes me deeply, horribly sad when someone I love dies. I don't think much about my own death any more, except that I don't want to burden those who love me or who might be forced to take care of me if I'm incapacitated for a long time. I've taken out enough insurance to dispose of my body and to pay my bills. I've also got insurance to give a bit of money to my kids for college and to get them started out on life.
Given my background, it's not surprising that I used to be terrified of death. I had only vague intimations of the punishments or pains that awaited me, and I very early on rejected a traditional notion of hell, but I did fear a type of eternal isolation and longing for God or happiness. It all seems very silly to me now--at least to think of it in strict terms rather than projecting my fears about my immediate family and my long-term life on an abstraction called "Eternity."
What changed my mind and assuaged my emotions about death was some good old philosophizing. I read Epicurus. The Greek philosopher had much to say about many topics, and he was a genius about living in a material world. He was among the first to think of the world in terms of atoms, and that upon death we would dissolve into our material substrate. He wasn't an atheist, but he did think that the Gods lived lives above and beyond humans and took no notice of our affairs.
I encountered my first Epicurean argument about Death in the guise of a William Hazlitt essay. Hazlitt was an 18th and early 19th century essayist who wrote prolifically and beautifully. He has a short essay entitled "Death" that rehearses one of Epicurus's main tenants. I can't tell you how influential the essay was on me. It struck me like lightening. He asked his reader to imagine the eternity of the universe up until his birth. Now he asked, do you worry about the time before you were born? That you didn't exist and never had existed? Now imagine the time after your death you won't exist and you will only have existed. It should hold as much fear and as much worry as the time before your birth. This is to say, none. Philosophers call this the "symmetry" argument about death.
The second argument against the harms of death is a particular one. It says the following. For death to be a harm, such as being cut or burned or robbed, it needs a subject to harm. Of course, no one wants a painful death, but pain is transitory, so should be endured knowing that it will pass. When one is alive, however, is death there? No, by definition. When one is dead, is there harm? No, because there is no one to harm. The subject is already dead. Thus, death harms no subject. There is a sadness about a too short life or the loss of someone you love, but for the one who has died there is no harm at all since there is no one to be harmed.
Death is a harm only for those who love the one who has died and regret or miss his presence. We need not fear death because where death is, we are not. Where we are, there is no death.
There are a lot of implications of that argument, both the symmetry side and the argument about subjectivity and harm, but I'll leave it at that.
I don't fear death because there will be no "I" when death has happened. I do want my dissolution to be quick, painless, and in a way that will allow me to survey my life, remember my friends and lovers, my children and family, and send my love to each and all.
The pain of your uncle's loss is real; the pain of your friend's suicide is sharp and marks a tragic event. They do not suffer because they do not exist to suffer. You are left with the real weight of their memories and, perhaps, a charge. The charge is how best to commemorate their lives, however small that commemoration. You are also left with a burden. How best do you live your life to leave happiness and justice when you pass?
love,
Tyler
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