“ I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation.
Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting .” – Bertrand Russel My mother, a philosopher, agnostic, and Russel adherent, would often say to me, “if the religious truly believed in an afterlife, they would be far less afraid of death than me.” Death is an unchangeable part of the human condition and, therefore, a true subject of philosophy.
And, as my favorite philosophy podcast tells me, we can include such figures as Zoroaster, the Buddha, Mohammed and Christ among the great philosophers of all time. So whether you are agnostic, atheist, an adherent of any religion or anything else in between, it is a healthy practice to think about death. All of us fear death.
It is a necessary evolutionary fear. To confront that fear is a great exercise in courage. It is what makes many, for example soldiers, physically courageous.
But this is the least of it. More than being physically fierce, the consideration of death gives one moral courage and a good outlook on life. It is these virtues, courage and a good life outlook, that I have learned from dabbling in philosophy.
After all, the goal of many philosophies is to guide us towards a good life. Memento mori Perhaps the most well-known exhortation.
