Is there really such a chasm between one group who truly and actively and worriedly fear death, and another which seems to have achieved a serenity and grace about the whole “ashes to ashes” thing? Let’s wonder for a moment if this is really more the result not of being fundamentally afraid, but of the very real and concrete act of WORRY. While I can certainly concede that there is absolutely a concrete result that for some becomes a more relevant concern with each passing day, don’t we all quite literary come one day closer to our OWN passing with each day’s own passing?
That can, of course, sound a little quaint or cutesy when put so literally. Ask anyone (theoretically, of course) on death row, or who has a terminal illness, or even who has just endured and still grieves the very painful loss of a loved one, and you come face to face with the difference between my hypothetical pondering above, and the very real thing that death is. When it is looming, even iminent, or when it has happened to someone who was – and stil IS – precious to us, are we not faced with an immediacy (hopefully temporary – at least for awhile) about something usually only “existential” – and its awful finality?
I think the question really centers around who thinks about it more often, and why they do. Okay, there is something to be said for those who have a faith of some kind, a trust in a higher power and a belief in an eternal life beyond this physical one. I am not going to explore those differences, as I am really an agnostic and I have plans tonight; were I to do this topic justice and include an examination of faith, I’d be writing until my own…arum…
Could it be that the closer one feels to actually having to face death, the greater the intensity is of any feelings that exist toward it? I even suspect that some psychoses are rooted in a feeling of urgency over death combined with a highly developed theoretical construct that it can be avoided. Such a construct could certainly be denial run amok – and that would probably be defined (or diagnosed?) as a defense mechanism. *In the interest of full disclosure and, well, caution – I am a *LAYPERSON* – the language of psychology is not mine, nor do I claim any credentialed expertise therein!
Whether a person responds to the contemplation of death with said defense mechanism and in so doing implying an irrational quality, or with plain ol’ fear or worry that is justified – say among the very old or the terminally ill, or others who are facing the possibility of their imminent demise – the fact remains that death is a statistical certainty. Of course, one must exclude our current, uhh…*living* population of some six billion and change in said statistical analysis.
So, am *I* afraid? No. Not today. Not yet. Now, about that whole denial thing…
