I normally don't think about death. I will know what to do when I get there. Thinking about it makes me terrified, yes.
"It's not the end that I fear with each breath, it's life that scares me to death"
Nobody will get to see the very end of our tale, just like nobody could remember the very beginning. From the moment life came to be till the time it finally gets snuffed out completely, we remember only a small period of time and the most impetuous events.
I like how the planet seems to behave just like any other living being, to a degree: it only now begins to store its memories. Its brain cells (that would be us, I think) grow more resilient and more capable over time.
It seems like in the end, nothing we'll ever do will matter. We could nuke ourselves to death, but the tide cannot be turned. The need to be loved which drives all of our actions cannot be rooted out, which is why there is no cure for depression. The programming seems almost flawless. There is no way to escape or change it. We will never truly transcend ourselves by learning exactly how our brain works, because that would make us, by nature, something else entirely, something more than human, and therefore possess even more advanced brains. There is no true freedom, or true free will, but the illusion of having one is more than enough anyway. We are amazing automatons, the most lifelike robots there are.
So, are the wizards who came to similar conclusions superhuman?
"Death is meaningless, making life the same."
No. They have given up. They possess forbidden wisdom. Or that's what they think, anyway, which really is all that matters. They have seen through the greater meaninglessness of it all. So they choose to wither and fade away.
The only winning move is not to play. Living is suffering. But we are built for losing time and time again, until we finally fail for the last time and die. We call them losers because they are missing out.
I'm talking as if I have it all figured out. But there is one peculiar piece that doesn't seem to fit. I used to do dissociative drugs. Once, I took quite a large dose. Halfway through the drug-induced trip, my heart started pounding and I started having peculiar hallucinations. My consciousness slipping away from me, I walked to the flatmate's room and asked him to call an ambulance. I was terrified. I desperately clinged to remaining "there".
But, right there and then, I had the most unsettling case of deja vu: I recalled the dream of asking the flatmate to call an ambulance, and riding said ambulance to hospital with a paramedic scolding me for my stupidity. I had had that dream a few months before.
That was too unreal to be true, and I feel increasingly nauseous, my heart rate rising as I write these very words and relive the memories.
The dream came true somehow; I remembered some of the things my flatmate, the paramedics and I said in the dream and they matched perfectly with real life, word for word.
I don't know what is true or false. I know, however, that lending any credence to that experience makes me a lunatic. I was not sober back then, for goodness' sake!
But that deja vu felt too real for comfort. If I am to trust myself, I would have to embrace the madness and believe I actually had an extremely accurate prophetic dream. But the implications of such a dream being true are almost too terrifying to ponder.
I don't think there exists anything after death. You cease to experience anything, especially yourself.
There are some things that just cannot be proven. I'd say let's stay sane and not think about them too much.
"How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real?"
