Are you afraid of dying?

Are you afraid of dying, my friend?

For the last week, and more, I sat, and stared at the above line, wondering, what would be a good way to follow up the above statement? What can I write after that line?

I could have written, how I feel about it. I could have written about my answer to the question, but then, that is the the object of this post.

And so, for a week, I did not manage to write anything after the last post. Maybe, just maybe, I should not be making any announcements before having written something. Yes.

Death, is the most interesting of topics, almost as interesting as the purpose of life. It’s a topic, on which discussions can be had, without worrying about reaching offending conclusions. It is one of the truths of life, one, which we quite conveniently, and mostly, to our peril, manage to forget. We, are designed to die one day. That’s Biology 101. Cells die.

And still, we behave as if we are invincible.

I think I got carried away a little. This, is a story, not a rant.

There was this boy, who was not afraid of dying. There was this boy, who had known loss, death, hurt, and love. He had seen it all. He often told himself, that he was not a boy, that he had grown way too quickly, but, in reality, he was just a little boy, trying on big boy pants.

The boy, was not afraid of dying. And no, it wasn’t a childish view of the world. He knew a bullet would kill him, so would an accident, and a million other things, he could see, or not. He was detached. He saw the world, and did not find a single thing that he would miss if he died that day. There were his parents, his sister. And he loved them, sure, but they did not bind him to the planet. He was not afraid of dying because he had seen, and known the inevitability of it.

Does that sound depressing? It isn’t really, and it picks up. Promise!

Then, the boy found a girl, a girl with a feisty soul. They danced. She burned him, and he, well, he burned, hot, into a volcano, a supernovae. The boy, was afraid. Afraid of dying. He had something, that made him want to stay, that made him afraid of dying.

Death is one of the truths of life. Perhaps, one of the greatest truths of life. And the inevitable nature of it, demands that it be taken into account when priorities are calculated, and decisions are made.

Death, provides a perspective, which is hard to match. There was this book, about which I had read an article. The book was written by a nurse who had been with men, and women, on their deathbeds. Nobody, nobody, talked about working a little more.

It’s funny, how we manage to narrow our vision, to planning the next day, and not see our lives for what they are. The people who live in our lives. The journey. The moments, the experiences.

That, brings us back to where we had begun..

Are you afraid of dying, my friend?