I write this in the midst of the long expected “next big infectious pandemic” that seems to have caught humanity by surprise (again).
This COVID-19 is interesting in it’s own right but even more fascinating is the reaction to it that we are witnessing world-wide. What was originally a medical problem has been transformed by the human animal into a social problem; an economic problem; an educational problem; a logistical problem and most far-reaching perhaps, a political problem.
A lot of people are running scared. Or hiding scared at least. The Reaper is in the barnyard and the livestock are losing their shit.
That is the actual problem. The fear.
I remember what it was like to fear death. It didn’t seem like fear most of the time because I believed in a story about Jesus and forgiveness that, for we lucky few Fundamentalist Christians meant that I was going to go to heaven after I died. I also believed that the vast majority of humanity was destined to burn in hell. This did not seem the least bit crazy to me. My beliefs stood as a shield between me and my fear. A shield that I could easily have held in place for a life-time. Right up to that final moment when my snug cocoon of beliefs and illusions was ripped away leaving me suddenly naked to face my fear alone and unprepared.
Like all fears, the fear of death is actually the fear of the unknown.
Can the nature of our demise be known while we are yet alive? Seems counter-intuitive doesn’t it? How can we possibly understand that which seems to be hidden behind an impenetrable veil?
By understanding the nature of who we really are, we can comprehend the mystery of what remains when the body is gone. When the brain is gone; when the memories are gone; when the illusions are gone.
When all that remains is You.
Once you see through this, once you realize that you don’t exist as some separate “thing” that is uniquely “alive”, the fear of death becomes laughable. It becomes something akin to being afraid of the end of a play.
All stories must come to an end. How else could new stories begin?
The day will come when an Enlightened humanity will be able to face death as the joyous adventure it is instead of as the final fate so many of us currently dread.
(Written Easter morning, 2020)