I am ready to die. Here’s why.

Turning death into the gift of life           

Words & images © Paul Ransom

Death. The idea scares us. Indeed, it can seem unfathomable, almost inconceivable. Surely, we tell ourselves, this isn’t just going to end. Yet, even though our survival instinct and most of our spiritual traditions urge us towards denial and/or defiance, the inevitable awaits. Our challenge is how to approach it.   

I have elected to embrace my mortality. Not simply to capitulate or grudgingly accept, but to welcome it, to regard it as the underwriter of existential value. It is my death that makes my life precious. This tiny window of self-aware, subjective experience – this perspective that affords me a glimpse of the eternal – is all the more beautiful because it will shortly close.

Some will find this morbid, or the result of a death wish. Others will assume a belief in one of the many after-life upgrades and reincarnation pathways proffered by religions and their mystic variants. Still others will think me either dangerously bored, lacking in true appreciation or in dire need of divine or professional help.  

None of the above apply.

If I am ready to die, partly it is because I might as well be. On the balance of probability, nothing will prevent it. So why waste energy fighting it? Why be sad about it? Why afraid? Better to spend every ounce of time and effort remaining enriching the life I still have.

Perhaps you think this glib, or merely trite, but I would remind you that death renders the profound personal. Though Buddhists, physicists and numerous thinkers have long argued that nothing is permanent – or indeed essential – it is our mortality that brings this home.  

All phenomena, including what we experience as life and self, are fleeting. All forms are unforming. Including the form of me.

There is nothing fixed or essential about me. I am an unfolding process. Not so much noun, as verb. Selfhood is an event, rather than a thing or static point. Even my experience of continuous and consistent identity is one of flux. In addition, the memory base that supports the structure of my self-story is built on shifting sand. My brain is plastic, and the organic chemistry that shapes both my body and my sensing is volatile and liable to system collapse. By the end of this paragraph I will not be who I was 95 words ago, and I will be closer to death than ever before.

Here again, some will baulk at what they regard as cold, reductive materialism. They may prefer standard ‘non-duality’ perspectives. Everything is one, etcetera. My response is to suggest that we do not need to limit ourselves to black or white options. We do not need to fence ourselves into either materialist or idealist positions, nor do we need to choose between the oneness and the multiplicity. Indeed, as many besides me have noted, the universe appears to move on an axis of opposites. Day co-entailed by night. Up by down. Life by death.

All of which is a rationalised version of a mostly intuitive, emotional embrace of impermanence. As intimated earlier, it is not simply that I have intellectually conceded but that I am thankful. More than that, liberated. Relieved. If this too shall pass, then I do not require the strain of control.  

Death defies the gravity of ego.

All vanity projects, each self ‘improvement’ fix, every holy crusade…they will all add up to zero. Contemplated calmly, felt deeply, this can be a source of lightness. Oblivion is not only egalitarian it is the supreme compassion. If, by some quirk, there is a god, the deity’s gift would not be eternal life, but eternal silence. Salvation is cessation.    

Many will think this wrong-headed. After all, there is nothing more counter-intuitive than nothingness. But may we not say the same of existence? Are not life and death twin mysteries? Being and non-being equally inexplicable? Everything, it seems, is grounded in nothing.

When we ponder this without drama, resisting the reflex to hold on, we can sense the workings of a paradoxical engine. The sublime tango of zero and one, which can also be regarded as two. In this enigmatic dance we are vaporous; a vale of smoke in an empty room. Translucent; like diamonds of light on the surface of an endless sea. The metaphors may be imperfect, but the awe is emancipating, the beauty humbling. Life is truly astonishing.

Only the ephemeral eye may gaze upon the infinite. Forever has no measure. No location. It cannot be triangulated. Eternity takes no time. It does not happen. It is not anything. Therefore, the only way I can be truly alive, to have any kind of experience, is to be temporary. Bounded. This is why I am thankful for mortality. Because death gives me life.

Does this mean I am in a rush to die? No. Does it mean that I am about to take stupid risks with life and limb? Not at all. I like living. I want it to continue – but not interminably.

Likewise, it is reasonable to ask if my belief that nothing is either essential or fixed, (nor mandated by cosmic authority), serves as a gateway to hedonic excess, a metaphysical invitation to amoral uncaring and cruelty. Again, no. My time is short, my situation tenuous, and as such I share in the manifold sufferings and fragilities of others. We are all absurd, irrational, selfish, grasping creatures engaged in ultimately futile struggle. The universe does not do carve-outs. It has not granted me special immunity or sanctified me in any way. Even though I could choose a life of wantonness, safe in the knowledge that it won’t make me or anyone else more (or less) dead, I understand that to inflict cruelty upon others is to heap further suffering on myself. Besides which, I prefer kindness. It feels better.   

In conclusion, being ready (unafraid) to die helps increase gratitude, as opposed to entitlement. In turn, gratitude pays off. It’s easier. Less wasteful. And it helps foster the aforementioned kindness.

Sentience is a rare commodity. Treasure it. Share it. Then, when the time comes, let it go. Release it.

If this sounds like waffle, I apologise. I am not here to preach or parade purported enlightenment. Like you, I am small. I have desires and I suffer. I have pride and I fall. Perhaps I am wrong about almost everything. But I have surrendered, the act of which has set me free. Now, when I think about death I am joyous. I might as well be, for all the difference it’s going to make.

PS: Elsewhere on this site I have explored related themes. For a more intellectual/philosophical exploration, check out The Divine Absence. More autobiographically, there’s Why I Never Got Round To Killing Myself. Lastly, for something more ‘lifestyle’ related, there’s Radical Lightness. Thank you for reading this piece. I hope it opens a window for you.