This weekend we celebrated my grandfather's 91st birthday. As my grandfather (or Dede, as we call him) blew his candles, he started to cry. When my father asked him why the sudden outburst of tears, Dede replied by saying that he just realized he was getting closer to dying. I found it so surprising that at 91, after having lived a sufficiently satisfying life, my grandfather was petrified of dying... And then I asked myself: Why are we really scared of death?
As I lounged on my bed that night, I thought about the reasons people were so afraid of the grim reaper and the answer dawned on me... People were afraid of being forgotten, of life moving on without them, of realizing that your loved-ones might mourn you for a while but eventually they will learn to continue living without you. It's upsetting to know that the world will keep on going on as though nothing has changed, with or without you. It's like being invited to a party, but for some reason you were unable to attend it. You get upset because you missed out on the catfight, the bitching, and the fun gossip that was raised that night. Party-goers might ask where you are, but after a while, they just forget that you're not there and continue to enjoy the party without you.
Think about the ancient Egyptians, why did they build those enormous pyramids? Yeah, they believed in an afterlife; but they did them because they wanted to leave a legacy - something to be remembered for. The same was true about Achilles, the immortal soldier. He knew he was immortal, but he wanted to leave a mark in the world; that's why he fought in Troy, the battle that eventually got him killed (the poor thing did not know that his one weakness was his heel...) We are not scared of death... We are scared of being forgotten. It's plain and simple, albeit a little self-centered too if you really think about it. American poet, Maya Angelou once wrote in a poem "People might forget what you said; they might forget what you did; but they will never forget how you made them feel." I truly believe that that is real. At the end of the day, I really don't care if someone made a million dollars before dying - it's important to know what he did with that money that really counts. Maybe he donated it to charity, or maybe he spent it all on hookers and hash... Perhaps that is how he wanted to be remembered. However, this quote did stir a dilemma in me: If people act in ways to be remembered, is anything they do then really altruistic or is it just for "show"? Some might say: "Who cares? As long as they are doing something..." But it would be interesting to explore the real motive behind their actions, I suppose.
Being highly intrigued with the topic of death - I know, I can be morbid at times, and I was having a rough weekend - I decided to ask my sister Leah what she thought about people's fear of death. I asked her if people's "death-phobia" was a rational one. She shrugged her slender shoulders and answered my question with one of her own: "What's the purpose of life anyway?" She then turned on the E! Channel, signaling the end of our very "philosophical debate" - The Kardashians were on and Kourtney's water just broke. But I was too engrossed with the new issue Leah had raised: What really is the purpose of life? Is there a unity to it all or is life a fragment of different vignettes of our lives, randomly collaged together to give us a semblance of unity? Was everything that happened to me in the past, meant to happen? Where there two diverging paths in the concrete jungle that is my life, and I have taken the wrong path at one point? I know I have met a lot of disappointments (sorry all the guys I went out with... You were all sad excuses) along that path... But I couldn't stop but picturing my life as a short movie montage with cheesy music playing in the background. I'm not expecting an answer to these questions, I know they are rhetorical and up for debate; but I enjoyed contemplating about them throughout the day. "Food for thought," as my cultural studies teacher Mr. Smith would have labeled them.
Death... It creeps on us and no one can avoid it. No one is spared, we are all going to end up six feet under one day - there is no need to sugar coat it or beat around the bush about it. However, Existential Psychologists and Philosophers once wrote that accepting death and learning that our fate is to die, that is when we start to live a genuine life. We start to live the life we want for ourselves, not the one dictated by those around us. I always find the question: "What do you want to do before you die?" so annoying. I'm not sure what I want to do next week, let alone think about the things I want to do before I cease living. I always answer: "Not have to answer this question." I think living life by following a "list of things I want to do" is not fun anyway... It just seems so "organized" and pre-planned".
Death... We all flirt with death... We all get a taste of what it would feel like to have the world continue to go on without us... We do it every night we fall asleep. For if you come to think of it, death is just a deep sleep... And as far as I'm sure, no one is afraid of sleeping...
As I lounged on my bed that night, I thought about the reasons people were so afraid of the grim reaper and the answer dawned on me... People were afraid of being forgotten, of life moving on without them, of realizing that your loved-ones might mourn you for a while but eventually they will learn to continue living without you. It's upsetting to know that the world will keep on going on as though nothing has changed, with or without you. It's like being invited to a party, but for some reason you were unable to attend it. You get upset because you missed out on the catfight, the bitching, and the fun gossip that was raised that night. Party-goers might ask where you are, but after a while, they just forget that you're not there and continue to enjoy the party without you.
Think about the ancient Egyptians, why did they build those enormous pyramids? Yeah, they believed in an afterlife; but they did them because they wanted to leave a legacy - something to be remembered for. The same was true about Achilles, the immortal soldier. He knew he was immortal, but he wanted to leave a mark in the world; that's why he fought in Troy, the battle that eventually got him killed (the poor thing did not know that his one weakness was his heel...) We are not scared of death... We are scared of being forgotten. It's plain and simple, albeit a little self-centered too if you really think about it. American poet, Maya Angelou once wrote in a poem "People might forget what you said; they might forget what you did; but they will never forget how you made them feel." I truly believe that that is real. At the end of the day, I really don't care if someone made a million dollars before dying - it's important to know what he did with that money that really counts. Maybe he donated it to charity, or maybe he spent it all on hookers and hash... Perhaps that is how he wanted to be remembered. However, this quote did stir a dilemma in me: If people act in ways to be remembered, is anything they do then really altruistic or is it just for "show"? Some might say: "Who cares? As long as they are doing something..." But it would be interesting to explore the real motive behind their actions, I suppose.
Being highly intrigued with the topic of death - I know, I can be morbid at times, and I was having a rough weekend - I decided to ask my sister Leah what she thought about people's fear of death. I asked her if people's "death-phobia" was a rational one. She shrugged her slender shoulders and answered my question with one of her own: "What's the purpose of life anyway?" She then turned on the E! Channel, signaling the end of our very "philosophical debate" - The Kardashians were on and Kourtney's water just broke. But I was too engrossed with the new issue Leah had raised: What really is the purpose of life? Is there a unity to it all or is life a fragment of different vignettes of our lives, randomly collaged together to give us a semblance of unity? Was everything that happened to me in the past, meant to happen? Where there two diverging paths in the concrete jungle that is my life, and I have taken the wrong path at one point? I know I have met a lot of disappointments (sorry all the guys I went out with... You were all sad excuses) along that path... But I couldn't stop but picturing my life as a short movie montage with cheesy music playing in the background. I'm not expecting an answer to these questions, I know they are rhetorical and up for debate; but I enjoyed contemplating about them throughout the day. "Food for thought," as my cultural studies teacher Mr. Smith would have labeled them.
Death... It creeps on us and no one can avoid it. No one is spared, we are all going to end up six feet under one day - there is no need to sugar coat it or beat around the bush about it. However, Existential Psychologists and Philosophers once wrote that accepting death and learning that our fate is to die, that is when we start to live a genuine life. We start to live the life we want for ourselves, not the one dictated by those around us. I always find the question: "What do you want to do before you die?" so annoying. I'm not sure what I want to do next week, let alone think about the things I want to do before I cease living. I always answer: "Not have to answer this question." I think living life by following a "list of things I want to do" is not fun anyway... It just seems so "organized" and pre-planned".
Death... We all flirt with death... We all get a taste of what it would feel like to have the world continue to go on without us... We do it every night we fall asleep. For if you come to think of it, death is just a deep sleep... And as far as I'm sure, no one is afraid of sleeping...
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