“What feeling do you have when you wake up in the morning, when your feet touch the floor? Or before that when you’re lying there, thinking about your feet hitting the floor? What feeling do you have, what does that feel like for you?” – The Rover (2014)

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A long time ago I watched a Grand Designs episode where the man who was building a house said that he woke up each morning thinking “Still alive! I get to do this living thing for another day.” I think about him often. I envy his comfort with his mortality and his openness to living or dying. I do not have that – I have fear of death.

Perhaps more specifically I have fear of no longer existing any more. While dying in my sleep somewhat appeals as a less scary way to go, more scary for me is the thought of my life ending in the blink of an eye. No waking up. No reflection. No existing. No more Dave.

As I’ve talked about before, perhaps being an ex-Christian makes it harder for me to face no longer existing. As a Christian you anticipate living forever, when you give that up suddenly you have to reckon with your mortality and what, in comparison to forever, feels like a very short life. I am in awe of how people just go on with their daily lives knowing death awaits them. I’ve asked a lot of people how they do it and the answer seems to be mostly distraction; ignore the feeling and eventually it goes away.

In his book This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free, philosopher Martin Hägglund posits our lives are meaningful, precious, and interesting precisely because they are limited. I have to be honest and say that this perspective does not bring me relief or consolation. I would rather have immortality with the option to die if I want to than the burden of mortality with no options.

Ultimately I can pontificate as much as I like but it’s not going to change the fact I am mortal and will not live to be 200 years old. Maybe better is to find what relief and consolation from death that I can find while I am still alive. I tell my therapist that my hope is if I get to live to be old enough, eventually I might be that kind of Very Old where you feel so very tired and start to think that you would like things to stop at some point. That is what I hope anyway, that one day instead of trying to find distraction I will actually welcome the end.