About the end and past it...
Life comes to end, death is inevitable. That might sound pessimistic, but I don't see anything negative about that. People say that death gives life meaning, it makes us value it that much more. We are afraid to die, it's a natural feeling we all have that helps us survive and not make bad decisions. But for the most part I think it's not JUST the principal of death that we are actually afraid of. For the most part, it's the possibility of great pain, or that we didn't have enough time to do everything we wanted, that it was unfair, the uncertainty of what will happen after we die. I'm not the most religious person, so I don't know much about how it is with the concept of death for different faiths. I do know that for the most part death is shown as a sort of barrier that separates this life from the afterlife or next life or whatever it might be that happens after depending on religion. For some, we don't stop existing but rather we just change into another state of being. Heaven and hell, reincarnation, that sort of stuff. If there is an afterlife, then what's the point of this life? Well, some believe that it's a sort of test, the result of which determines what comes after. If you have a certain result you're striving for then you live your life accordingly. But because you can never be certain that whatever you've done is enough, THATS what can make you be afraid of dying. You live your life and hope for the best, that's called faith. If a person has lived a fulfilling life then they might not be as scared of death as most people. They had a family, prayed everyday, helped the poor, tried to do good everyday etc. Ending things without regrets is basically what might be considered the best way to go. You literally did most if not everything you could, accomplished everything you set out to do and are contempt about the things you couldn't. The time you had wasn't wasted away and was just enough for you to be happy with the way you spent it. I think time is what it all comes down to. Because we have a finite amount of time, and not knowing how much exactly of it we have left, the idea of running out of it before we have fulfilled everything we wanted to is scary. Our greed plays a significant role in this as well. As humans, nothing, no matter how much we accumulate, will be enough. But having something that is seemingly everywhere and not being able to so much as touch it frustrates us extremely. People often say:” If only I had more time. Time doesn't wait for anyone.” which might or might not be similar to this case.
Now the thing I'm thinking at the moment is, what if there were people who were immortal? I mean, there is no such thing as death for someone who has achieved immortality. But what if there was some kind of way to temporarily make an immortal person mortal again for just a short amount of time? Surely the concept of death wouldn't bring fear to them when they know that they can exist forever. But if that sort of guarantee was striped off them, would their feelings on the matter remain unchanged? Would they feel fear at the notion of their life being suddenly cut short, or would they feel relieved, perhaps happy that it would finally come to an end?
And what about the so called afterlife? In this case I'd like to think about the concept of going to heaven after you die. Let's imagine that heaven is real and you died, and that you got into heaven for all the good things that you've done. You get to experience and eternity of happiness, surrounded by the people you love that have also gotten into heaven either before or after you. Can a human, who has had to live his whole life going through hardships, stress and so on, with a mindset that he/she has a finite amount of time to "exist” possibly live normally in heaven? A place where you seemingly exist forever, with no problems, no conflicts, where all your wishes and desires come true the instant you might think about them without any effort at all. Of course this is also not certain, I know this. While we are alive we grow, we mature based on our experiences, good or bad, that's our whole life. But what do you do when that’s no longer necessary?
The only thing we as humans know for sure is that death comes for all of us, no exceptions. It never discriminates between poor or rich, male or female, young or old. Because of that knowledge we learned to value our time that much more. Because we know there is an end, we try to do as much as we can with whatever time we have. This knowledge doesn’t, for the most part, hinder us but also keeps us in check so that we don’t go too far with things.