Advantages to the feared, inevitable concept of death

(U-WIRE) DEARBORN, MICH., — Recently, in one of my philosophy classes, my sanity was called… (U-WIRE) DEARBORN, MICH., — Recently, in one of my philosophy classes, my sanity was called into question when I announced that I don’t fear death and that I look forward to growing old.

I was almost immediately asked “Are you crazy?” by another student. I think this perspective on death is representative of the majority in the United States and this is unfortunate because this negative viewpoint is in no way beneficial to anyone.

In my opinion, when anything in life is completely inevitable, there’s never any reason to confront it with anything other than optimism. For example, if tomorrow you’re scheduled to go into work for a job on which you seriously depend, all that you will accomplish by moping around about it or getting frustrated by it is that you will ultimately make it more difficult on yourself.

Not only that, but you’ll frustrate the people around you and the image that others have of you will be tarnished.

Furthermore, death gives meaning to life. Time would overwhelmingly be taken for granted if we had too much of it. There is a growing trend in biogerontology right now that intends to seek out the specific causes of human aging and stop them (Google Englishman Aubrey de Grey to learn all about it) and it has been hypothesized that humans are capable of living literally up to 5,000 years.

Even if this is possible (which I highly doubt), would anyone seriously want to live this long? Especially since we’re such mortal beings, this would only serve to increase the degree of fear in which most of us live because we know that if we are prematurely killed, we might not be just missing out on the next few decades as is usually the case, but the next few millennia.

Many in this country nowadays are preaching a “culture of life.” This camp has their heart in the right place, but I think they’re more than a little misguided.

There are now more than 6 billion humans on this earth and a significant portion of them live in poverty. We can argue at length on the extent to which a developing fetus or a vegetable (like Terri Shiavo) is sentient but there clearly is no such argument with respect to the billions of humans that are living, breathing and walking around in a pathetic state of poverty; usually only because they were unfortunate enough to be born into such conditions.

A “culture of life” should be concerned with quality of life, not merely the fact of life. It’s better to have five billion people living well than to have an additional billion living in conditions comparable to livestock.

As a skeptical, scientific thinker, I am not sure if there is a God or an afterlife. Honestly, I think the (lack of) evidence isn’t in their favor. Nevertheless, I don’t see this prospective lack of a creator as a lack of meaning in life or as a lack of moral guidance.

On the contrary, I wonder why anyone would need a big brother looking over their shoulder so that their life can have meaning, or so that they can have a reason to be good.

I say we should all live simply because we do and be good simply for the sake of being good, and for all the positive effects that result from this optimism.

If I’m wrong and there is an afterlife, then I’ll be forced to face the consequences. If my intuition is right and the only thing left of me afterwards is the energy that once flowed through my body, then I certainly won’t be around to be sad about it, so I might as well smile while I can.