I’ve been pondering the end. Not the end of all things, but my own personal end.
I’m not considering ending things before their time (or perhaps before life simply can’t continue). I have read a few existentialist writings recently, which have me imagining the last moment, and then the moment after.
People have documented their near death experiences, and ignoring for a moment the ones where misfiring synapses caused hallucinations, the rest seem to generally agree that there’s nothing.
Not ‘oh I’m alone in a dark place‘. No. Nothing. A complete absence not only of things, but of thought, of awareness. I can liken this to the last time I had to go in for surgery.
I was there breathing, they were counting down, then it was hours later. I remember nothing. I dreamt nothing. I thought nothing. I’d say that I wasn’t .. anything, for that period of time. I can only imagine the end is like that. Nothing to miss, because there’s nothing at all, not even me.
This has me wondering now about several things. My mind reels considering billions of lights just like mine, but going out all the time; their lives as important to them as my own, their endings also vanishing into silence.
I wonder about my own end. I wonder if I’ll have the strength to say ‘this is enough’ when the machine fails, and to step off into the dark. I honestly don’t know if I’m more afraid of going, or being gone.
I wonder if I’m using this time well enough. How do I quantify that? Who judges? I already know I’m going to leave precious little behind, and I don’t know how I’d change that. I don’t know if I want to, or if I even should want to. I wonder if I should be more upset that we leave no children behind, or glad that we’re not adding to a generation which might not survive to full term.
I’ll admit the fear comes back from time to time. It returns now and takes up residence in the animal part of my brain, demanding an answer – anything to stem the flow of days and prevent the end. I am reminded again why people believe in impossible things against all proof. A beautiful lie is often more palatable than a painful truth.
I’ll make peace with this. Somehow. I’ll continue to enjoy what I have, and try not to let the end spoil the middle.