Home For Fiction – Blog

To say that death is a perspective might at first sound bizarre. The fear of death must be among the most powerful fears humans experience during their life (think about the irony for a second).

Whether that fear is rational or not, it’s something we’ll need to talk about. We also need to ponder on what we mean by “fear of death”. Do we refer to our death or others’? Do we refer to death or dying?

All these are valid questions – albeit, questions most people bypass as too inconvenient. These, too, are parts of the “death is a perspective” thesis. But there’s much more to it.

Death Is a Perspective: Basic Considerations for Basic Definitions

English literature being my academic focus, I’m an ardent believer in the accuracy of words and concepts. To put it simply, we should try to be as precise as possible.

Sometimes this isn’t easy. Take words such as “love” or “success“, for instance. They are habitually misused, abused, or overused.

I’ve also noticed that accuracy in words and concepts is even harder for difficult subjects. Well, if there ever was a subject too uncomfortable to ponder on, death must surely be it!

Accuracy of Terms

And so, let’s talk about accuracy.

When we say that humans are afraid of death, what do we mean? For most, I suppose this means that they’re afraid to die. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first let’s agree on something else.

Excepting sociopaths that have no friends, family, loved ones, or empathy in general, any normal person is afraid of others’ death; their loved ones, that is.

This is a matter of perspective in case you haven’t thought of it. From your perspective, which is that of someone left behind, death is the most final, irreversible separation from someone you cared about. You don’t need me to tell you that this is a harrowing human experience.

Another matter of terminological accuracy is the distinction between death and dying. It’s perfectly natural to be afraid of dying. There are many ways to die that can involve a lot of agony and pain – nobody in their right mind can honestly say they’re not afraid of certain ways to die.

But is it as natural to be afraid of death? In other words, is the fear of death an irrational fear?

Death Is a Perspective: Epicurus

Epicurus was the first philosopher of the Western tradition to tackle the issue – namely, that death is a perspective.

Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness […] Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. 

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus [my emphasis]

The excerpt emphasized above is a rather straightforward way of saying death is a perspective.

For Epicurus, this irrational fear of death is responsible for many of the senselessness plaguing the human experience. The madness of organized religions proves his point very aptly.

Another part of Epicurus’s philosophy revolves around the issue of human happiness. For Epicurus, happiness is a consequence of the absence of pain both physical and mental.

Whether that is possible or not is a matter of debate, but its formulation allows us to make a 2000-year leap and reach Arthur Schopenhauer. For both Epicurus and Schopenhauer seem to agree on the temporality of experience: experiencing occurs only here and now, whereas the fear of death is always situated in the future.

Death Is a Perspective: Schopenhauer

I have quoted Schopenhauer before on this blog – one example being the article on the nature of stress. Schopenhauer’s thoughts on temporality have also found their way into my doctoral dissertation.

So, let’s take a moment to revisit Schopenhauer and his views on the human existence, particularly in terms of death and perspective:

[Reflection] endows man with that thoughtfulness which so completely distinguishes his consciousness from that of the animal, and through which his whole behaviour on earth turns out so differently from that of his irrational brothers. He far surpasses them in power and in suffering. They live in the present alone; he lives at the same time in the future and the past. They satisfy the need of the moment; he provides by the most ingenious preparations for his future, nay, even for times that he cannot live to see. They are given up entirely to the impression of the moment, to the effect of the motive of perception; he is determined by abstract concepts independent of the present moment.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. 1 st ed. 1958. Translated by E.F.J. Payne. New York: Dover, 1969. p 36)

The fear of death, Schopenhauer argues, can be overcome once it becomes obvious that “[t]he present is the only real form of the phenomenon of the will. Therefore no endless past or future in which [man] will not exist can frighten him” (Ibid. 284).

In other words, Schopenhauer makes the case that death is a perspective or, at the very least, that the fear of death is certainly one.

If Death Is a Perspective, why Are We still Scared?

I’m not too judgmental Still, I am very critical of people who, driven by their fear of death, make irrational decisions and reach unfounded conclusions. of people who are afraid of death. At the very least, death as a concept (if that is a thing) brings no pleasant associations with it. From the perspective of the living, death means only suffering, untold sadness, and a strong feeling of unreality.

Similarly, I can’t fault people who would preferably avoid a slow and painful death dying and much rather die like my grandfather – peacefully, in his sleep; not screaming in agony like his passengers. 😉

I’m afraid of death – others’, that is; people I care about. I’d also prefer to die in a way that lacks pain, either physical or mental. But death? Nah… Why would I care about a concept that would exist only when I don’t? I wasn’t scared before I was born, and I won’t be after I die.

There are things scarier than death; immortality, for example!