Required Reading: Letter 30: On Conquering The Conqueror
“Philosophy bestows this boon upon us; it makes us joyful in the very sight of death.“
Wow! For all the letters I’ve written thus far, I casually touched on death! Really, who wants to talk about that?! Well, I need to; for it is certain for all of us. There is no one exempt from it; rich and poor; baby and old; say their names; it’d be foretold! Even the great one – the one the Christians adore experienced it.
So, I shall begin this essay by relating my experience to it. My prayer is that it visits me not so soon; but, if it choses to, I am preparing myself like Bassus to embrace it. My ask is that it plays not a trick and sweep my feet from under me; or shoot me in the back; but, face me squarely so that I may have a good look at it! For many has given death such a morbid description; a sinister character of evil intent.
But, I choose to differ and anticipate it as the calmness of my soul; most beautiful; for it comes to visit me when it believes my time here on this side of heaven is complete whether I am in my prime or as old as Bassus! For as Seneca torts “We do not fear death, we fear the thought of death…”
Now, what if the thoughts planted in our minds were thoughts of calm; tranquility; a peaceful journey over to the Next Best Experience; will we fear death so much? Suppose we view it as only a bridge to that experience; one infinitely better than what we experience here and the only door to enter through was death?
Does it color the thought a bit for you? Well, begin to see it as such; Nature has no other way for us to “cross the river”; it has invented no other path; death is the only method it uses and until we can see the beauty of what it is trying to do, we remain fixed in our preconditioned thoughts of pain and anguish across said river.
Who told us that it was only pain or pleasure; or hell or heaven over there? Did you read it in a book? What book? Did some one tell it to you? Who did? Has some one actually crossed over that river and come back to give you an account of what occurs there? You’re sure? Please text me their phone number, email, facebook or social handles; I love to have a look at them; speak to ’em! If they have not! Then, ball up every thought of dread which death invokes and smash it against the wall! It is all theory!! But I digress; forgive me. Where was I? Oh! I see.
What if all of these conditioning were filtered to the TRUTH that “we go from whence we came”; it is only right not to overstay our welcome right? Would you want to be a perpetual burden to a friend? What if your body ails you that no doctor; no medicine in the world could cure you; would you want to endure such a pain for the rest of your life? What if you were destitute; completely at the end of the ropes; hanging over a cliff – had no one ; family, friend, government or charity to aid you; would you think it was best to prolong such misery? Do you count long existing – not long “living” a blessing? There is a right time to die; for death it is Anytime; we men think otherwise! Farewell!
Word of the day:
Conquer (verb): overcome militarily; be victorious; overcome by effort (The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus 2nd Edition).
Quotations:
“Death follows old age precisely as old age follows youth.”
“He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live.”
“We do not fear death we fear the thought of death for death itself is always the same distance from us.”
Questions:
1) Do you think of death sometimes? What do you imagine it as?
2) Would you want to live till old age? Would you care either way if its end was painless or not?
3) What do you need to have accomplished before you exit the stage?
Activities:
1) Imagine heaven – create a place in your mind of the ideal state of harmony.
2) Write down your bucket list – 100 things you would like to do prior to…okay, perhaps not that many.
3) Write down your death age. Why this number?
