amor.dor
Aisling
- Dec 24, 2025
- 270
I had already decided to catch the bus, so I couldn't help but try to "experience death" before actually dying.
After much reflection, for years on end, I began to understand a little of what death is like—something that sounds almost paradoxical to a mind accustomed to imagining what it does not experience firsthand.
If death is the opposite of life, there is no consciousness; therefore, it's impossible to experience one's own death. What we experience is the process of dying, which can be very painful. Most deaths in the world are slow and agonizing. At least in suicide, one can choose the least painful death possible. Rare are those who have a peaceful death.
But returning to the subject—the great insight I had was reading accounts of blind people who were born with sight and lost it completely. There is no darkness or blackness in their vision, but rather a total nothingness. I read that they describe the impossibility of seeing as trying to see with their hair, with their elbow, and things like that. If vision is just one of the senses, and in death all senses are nullified, what could one experience? A complete nothingness. There is no consciousness in death—only inert matter that will be recycled into a new form.
The great fear we have of death is an interpretation we make from our own act of living—a life after death—because for a living being, everything revolves around life, just as for a fish, everything revolves around water.
The biggest problem of all, in my view, is when to choose to die and the process of dying—something society denies all of us. If life is an unbearable burden, there is no reason to carry a gift that was never asked for.
At least that's what I think. I will return this Greek gift.
After much reflection, for years on end, I began to understand a little of what death is like—something that sounds almost paradoxical to a mind accustomed to imagining what it does not experience firsthand.
If death is the opposite of life, there is no consciousness; therefore, it's impossible to experience one's own death. What we experience is the process of dying, which can be very painful. Most deaths in the world are slow and agonizing. At least in suicide, one can choose the least painful death possible. Rare are those who have a peaceful death.
But returning to the subject—the great insight I had was reading accounts of blind people who were born with sight and lost it completely. There is no darkness or blackness in their vision, but rather a total nothingness. I read that they describe the impossibility of seeing as trying to see with their hair, with their elbow, and things like that. If vision is just one of the senses, and in death all senses are nullified, what could one experience? A complete nothingness. There is no consciousness in death—only inert matter that will be recycled into a new form.
The great fear we have of death is an interpretation we make from our own act of living—a life after death—because for a living being, everything revolves around life, just as for a fish, everything revolves around water.
The biggest problem of all, in my view, is when to choose to die and the process of dying—something society denies all of us. If life is an unbearable burden, there is no reason to carry a gift that was never asked for.
At least that's what I think. I will return this Greek gift.
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