The fear of nothing

I spend a lot of time (over)thinking things, especially on bus rides and anytime I’m not already occupied with something else. One topic that comes to mind often is humanity’s relationship with death – how it forms the rest of our social norms and structures.

It seems to me that pretty much everything current humanity stands on is based upon one major fear:

Destruction without consent.

Indeed, I would suggest that the lack of consent is, in some ways, scarier than destruction itself.

Humans desire autonomy and free will. We desire control over our lives. The accessibility of choices. Freedom is a human right, something sought after more than wealth or health. In some ways, even the desire for wealth or health links to a desire for freedom – to not have troubles with your body or your money hinder you from living.

The most heinous crimes deal with death and destruction – murder, torture, rape, genocide. Something intrinsic to the human being is killed: if not their physical life, then their society, dignity, autonomy. The things that hold us up as human have been broken down.

Current fears of poverty and climate change also relate to similar fears. If the Earth is dying, humanity will die too. If there are not enough resources, people can’t feed, drink, live.

The other strong point about all the above is that it happens beyond the control of the person. Victims of heinous crimes don’t choose to be victims – they didn’t ring up a Dial M for Murder service and volunteer themselves. They didn’t set out to destroy the Earth through global warming or poking holes in the ozone layer.

There are people who are comfortable with death, who want to take death into their own hands. There are the obvious examples, like suicide and euthanasia – extremely controversial and touchy. But think of war, for example. Victims and casualties of war don’t tend to wish for death. However, the fighters in wars often know that they’re likely to die, and go in anyway – many with the feeling that their death will be honourable.

And what about the less serious things? Losing your job -> no livelihood -> death of dignity (and perhaps physically). Being heartbroken -> loss of dignity and self-esteem. Rejections -> beyond your control.

Here’s the thing though: Our deaths are usually beyond our control. Most of us don’t know when or where or how we’re going to die. We can’t usually call up the Grim Reaper and make an appointment. Deaths often take everyone by surprise.

So why are we demonising something that is inevitable?

A closed one dying sucks. I hate death, personally. It’s the dying aspect that gets to me – the pain and anguish and wait. The mere idea of losing my loved ones hurts me so much. But many people die quickly without pain. They die peacefully. In some cases death was better than living (say, for example, if they were suffering a major disease – loss of peace?).

If you believe in an afterlife, usually you’d believe that you meet everyone you care about in said afterlife, so you don’t really lose them forever. If you don’t, then there’s just nothing at the end of it, so it doesn’t matter.

Are we afraid of nothing?

Nothingness is a very difficult concept. We can think of zero, emptiness, space, but even space is “something”. There’s something that surrounds the space, something that holds it in. Absolute nothingness is hard to grasp. We can’t conceive it. If there was nothing, there’s nothing that will help us conceive it anyway. We just don’t exist.

It’s understandable why this would throw people into a big loop. We’re all here and we want to be something. Have some point to our existence. Not just disintegrate into nothing.

But is nothing such a bad thing?

What if we turned our fear of death, destruction, no free will, nothing around? What if death was a celebration, an achievement? Would our taboos be completely different? How would life be structured? Would “achievement” even be a concern? Will we have goals, benchmarks, targets? What would we do in our life?

If we didn’t fear nothing, would we still fear something?