Death. It is odd how our entire life revolves around the awareness of this phenomenon. That we will all die. That someday we will cease to exist. Maybe humankind will cease to exist. We are all so frightened of non-existence, that the seventy or eighty odd years of our existence will have no meaning, that we strive every moment of our life to make ourselves immortal. All of us want to immortalize ourselves, and almost everyone, by the work they do, the contribution that they make to mankind, as if we are some tiny cog in a giant machine.
Before we can utter a coherent sentence, we are asked "what do you want to be?" and the ideal answer to that would be "a doctor, an engineer…" or some other profession. A child who does not reply in this vein would be considered to be ill brought up, maybe stupid. Right from when our cognizance begins, we are ingrained with the idea that what we do defines who we are. And that determines our life from then forth. We all forget our worth as human beings. "I am of value simply because I exist" - why is this simple, straightforward thought so difficult to fathom? Why do we constantly need to prove our worth to someone, be it just to ourselves? Do the flowers and the birds have any purpose? Are they not valuable by their very existence? Then are we, humans, so below the birds of the sky and the flowers of the earth, that our existence must be justified?
Why did I speak of death? Because I believe that when we could truly accept death as the end, when we realize that we exist now, and that we will cease to exist no matter what, we will stop worrying so much about our life. We will then, maybe, look upon life as what it really is, a few precious moments of consciousness. Moments, that we decide will bring us joy or pain. Because Death defines Life. And this knowledge defines us.
