There is always somberness when death enters our lives, almost always unexpectedly. It arrives without judgment or expectation. We are not expected of death to be presentable in our best form, only our truest. We come in to this world naked in physical and spiritual form. And we exit the world the same way, bearing our naked souls, deathbed secrets and stories untold. The concept that death strikes fear in the hearts of many is unfortunate. Yet we fail to realize that death is not to be feared rather welcomed in like an old friend. I do not see death as a haunting of love lost and friends gone or a mistake we ought not to bother. If we have lived as we are meant to live, and not locking ourselves away, then death should not be a frightening experience, but an experience. Although for some death is immensely painful and for others death comes painlessly.
I spend a great deal wondering what goes on in someone's mind as they inch closer and closer to the edge, clinging on to life. Consider it a crossover from physical life to ultimate consciousness of self and soul. And the questions people have foreboded came from a place of feared discontent. Where does one go? What comes after life? Or is there and after, after all? Or does everything end simultaneously all at once and everything is forgotten and we become nothing more than rotting flesh and caskets lowered below the earth? Can we as humans overcome the fear and heartbreak of losing someone? Or are we forever broken, stuck in a state we can't comprehend or fathom? Is all that we are and ever will be just a shadow cast upon the earth, walking living breathing shadows, haunting ourselves forevermore? I simply could not imagine spending the entirety of my life fretting over little things such as death, for death is the ultimate inevitable inescapable final step. Could it be that we've been looking at it in the wrong way? An impression of our physical selves will forever carry on in the hearts of the ones that love us and will always love us.
There are far too many questions that infinitely outweigh the answers. And I think not upon the answers to the questions, but in fact the questions we are asking are far more important than an answer could not fulfill our desire to know and understand what we are asking. We could spend our entire lives asking the same questions and never an answer arrived upon, or we could simply ask questions about life and death on a philosophical level and never expect to have them answered. And we live, just simply live each day as though it was our last. A life wasted contemplating life is far sadder in that context than a short life lived to its maximum potential.
It’s not to say I am stressing that we are only human, and not invincible beings living through immortality. Could we left go of all inhibitions and just be? Albeit an improbable statistic for the lot of human beings, and the lot of all lovers alike, “knower’s” and “Doers” not just “beings”. I fully understand that often times we feel we have the weight of the world resting on our shoulders, and we can’t grasp that we are just ONE of many that have felt this way. I have been broken, scarred beyond recognition. Yet, I do not falter, nor dread the days that come after this day. I do not wish another does not arrive because I am human too and I fear many things that cannot be explained in simple terms. I am not a heartless, soulless human. I do understand many truths most prefer to ignore. I stare down my fears as though I’m looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. I unload my hurt and fear and pain and face it head on. It’s as though I’m having a staring contest between myself and the mirror. That pane of glass that stares back yet never blinks until you blink. That is, until you make a move, only then will the reflection move.
The condescending pretentious mirror we all fear peering in to. As Nietzsche once so famously said, “When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”. A brilliant statement many have pondered upon throughout history. If we keep perpetuating this staring contest, if we say ***** the abyss, for I am the abyss and I fear not what I will find. We could conquer the concepts that earth and life itself has presented to us. If we could just let go and realize we keep holding on to the hurt, the pain, the let downs, we might as well be dead already. You might as well write your own obituary and construct the epitaph carved on to the stone head buried slightly in the ground, where your body will lie forever throughout all of time. Many have died hundreds of times before they’re dead. A fool’s errand in my opinion, and we've been running in circles, bumping into ourselves over and over again. Just let go, just be. You will see there is nothing to fear, except the reflection of who you present yourself to be. Break the metaphysical mirror, shatter it to bits. It is not needed to live a life truly lived.
2014 Christina Jackson