Going Beyond the Veil

Akira, a teenager is in conversation with the Angel-of-Death who is in the form of an old man.

(A piece of Philosophical Literature)

Why is it that I feel so oddly close to death? Is it something I want to avoid at all costs since I'm so afraid of it? Or do I yearn for it like a moth yearns for even a dim flash of light?

What a mystery is death! Most people hate it and desire never to encounter it, but for some strange reason, my curiosity gets piqued whenever I see or hear about it. I want to know if it really is as horrible and terrifying as people make it out to be.

Death is a subjective concept. Its semantics vary along with the varying situations, circumstances, causes and age of death. While patients who suffer from chronic illnesses typically see death as a release for all the suffering they endure throughout their lives, geriatrics would consider it as a peaceful destination that one reaches after a long and arduous journey of a life replete with agony and pain. Younger people would be terrified of it given how unknown it is, but because they tend to view things negatively, they imagine death to take the worst possible shape. When it comes to children, the most innocent of all human beings, they are usually taught by adults that it is something to be avoided, but they don't instinctively feel threatened by it. This often makes me wonder if death is really meant to be terrified of.

Death gives life its purpose and significance. Sans any pain, there’s no happiness. Sans any suffering, there’s no love. Similarly, there is no life if there is no death. When our emotions are so intense, so fuelled with passion and fire, that we are unable to even articulate them for the fear of being burned or permanently scarred, we realise that language is but a tool for expressing what we can. The rawest feelings ever felt by humans are in some way or the other related to death and hence, inexplicable. These feelings are not temporal or palpable. Human emotions, including pain, sorrow, and even the simplest sensations such as getting goosebumps, are different variations of death's innumerable forms. Additionally, death is essential in order to let future generations enjoy their right to be born, cherish life and experience death, again, for the generations to come.

I frequently wonder, “Why do people crave the endlessness of life? The desire for this physical imprisonment, which is laced with never-ending moments of fleeting joy and hollow melancholy, greatly perplexes me.”

Ironically, despite how often people claim to want to escape pain and suffering, we seem to invariably find ourselves at the receiving end of misery. Humans are, in fact, by now, accustomed, and acclimatised to sorrow and agony. We are confused, insecure beings who feel lacking in our mental environments when there isn't some hazy sense of poignancy always in the back of our minds. Humans are shown in their most bare, figuratively naked form, when they are without sadness, being completely open, totally vulnerable to the punishments and condemnations of the world.

Death, for me, has always been a peculiar feeling of home. I can go back there after living a long and demanding life. It's a place, a state, or a circumstance that is unaffected, unperturbed by the ephemeral bitterness and transient sweetness of reality, of life, something that is always tranquil. It is free of all the ills of the temporal world, including all types of inequality, all judgements, commitments, disappointments, disillusionments, fetters of limitations, onus of expectations, responsibilities, as well as the feeling of fleeting attachments.

Because death itself cannot pass away, it is beautiful. A sense that there is always going to be ‘something’ that will be constant and unchanging forever is what gives me melancholic and hopeless comfort. That there is a destination after all, that there is a place for all of us. It is reliable and worthy of our trust because it won't ever abandon us, or say, it can never abandon us. Alas, how ill the fate of Death is!

It was rightly expressed by Oscar Wilde in The Canterville Ghost, “Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grass waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

To be at peace, finally, ultimately.

(Part-2 of the series, "Questions of Doom")

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay