I don’t fear death. I embrace it. This does not make me brave, in fact in many ways I think that it makes me a more cowardly man emotionally and spiritually.
I cannot say that I have ever closely encountered a near-death experience other than consistent thoughts of suicide or some sort of action towards those thoughts. So, I guess that for me I view death at this point as a purely abstract concept. The closest I’ve ever been to actually dying was probably motorcycling around Bali many years ago, and that was totally by accident.
I cannot exactly pinpoint why I don’t fear death. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I suppose I have some theories as to why. For a lot of people, it’s probably their biggest fear. But I deeply fear a great number of things that many people would consider low on their respective lists of what they are afraid of.
I fear greatly that the visions I have are nothing more than delusions of grandeur built on hubris. I fear letting down the great entrepreneurs and artists who have come before me, all of whom I have never met. I fear that my thinking of them figuratively ‘passing the baton’ to me, to build upon their extraordinary work, are just the thoughts of a kid who is thinking way out of his league.
Most of all, I fear not giving everything I possibly can to the aforementioned visions. Everyday, I fear wasting the opportunities I’ve created and and the belief that some people have in me by not working as hard as I possibly can. I fear that, in whatever life I have left in me, that I am not spending every waking moment towards fulfilling God’s mission. I fear that I will not be able to fully realise the visions because of a lack of action., not because of a lack of intent or drive. I fear not living whatever time I have left here to fullest.
But death, I don’t fear. I welcome it. I personally think that there are a great many more things to fear than dying. Maybe it’s some mental disorder. Maybe it’s because of all of the literature I’ve read. Maybe it’s some sort of spiritual path or awakening I’ve undergone throughout my existence.
Or maybe, I’m just a weird dude who thinks strange thoughts. As Mark Twain once put it: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”