|
| quote: | Originally posted by astroboy
What I can promise you is that since I was little I have not felt any fear of dying, and I don't feel any now. |
How often do you get the feeling that you are going to die though? I have no idea what it is you do for a living or what things are like *where* you live, but I am willing to bet that since you seem to have such free access to the internet, death is not something you face everyday - and if it is, it probably isn't necessarily your own. Not that I face it everyday or something, but as I understand it, the world is a frightening place, full of death and injustice, and people die every day for reasons that have nothing to do with them.
I used the gun in the mouth example as a hypothetical proposition (obviously) because it illustrates much of the world (some parts more than others) on several levels. Ignorance of one's own mortality is just as natural as the fear of death, in my opinion - It's this dual nature that leads to the basis for religion and other magicks that are, arguably, an inextricable part of the human condition, and a great cause for people to deny their fear of death, assured as they are at the foot of the throne of the Lord. It seems to me that most people are oblivious to their own mortality - as they should be - but we are in a world where someone could press a button and make us all die. Rockets could be on their way to your house at the moment, for all you know. Inexplicable, ridiculous, absurd, non-sensical: none of this will stop it from happening. Maybe we are just desensitized to it all in our placid state? This possibility of death has no bearing upon us whatsoever - it's like an internal defense system, a component of sentience, that allows us to not fully realize, at all times, just how fragile our lives are, just how easy it is for us to all go away. When this shield of ignorance is stripped from us however, what is left?
Most of us have had our brushes with death and are obviously still around to tell the tale - perhaps it is this particular outcome of pure luck that gives people such confidence in their facing it again (or saying they would have no qualms facing it again)? I don't know.
___________________
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
|
