Any type of loss is disturbing. When it is linked to a person’s life, it becomes even more painful. We live in a material world where we mourn over someone else’s death but never realize the inevitable fate of our own life.
It reminds me of a funny scene in one Bollywood movie called “Dhamaal,” in which a staff member in an airport control room gives a profound lecture on death but never realizes a plane approaching his workstation, which eventually takes his life.
The grief we suffer when someone dies, I believe, is not related to death as a biological or spiritual process; its root is the attachment we have with that person. The more intense the attachment, the greater the grief. The most painful moment is when someone loses her spouse, family members or close friends. The grief lessens to the level of mere sympathy when one discovers the death of someone they do not know.
The psychological aftermath of death may be interpreted differently by different people. But there is no doubt over its invincible nature. You can delay it, but you can’t get rid of it. The poets, writers, artists, painters and musicians make a futile attempt to fancying themselves as immortal through their artwork. Some people glorify death, as Yuval Noah Harari wrote, creating a myth that the person who dies for the nation will live forever in memories.
The death of someone close is painful for weeks or months. But life doesn’t wait for anyone; it moves on even through the greatest adversities. Her footprints slowly get erased from our mind, and one day, she will be almost forgotten. Her memories will be limited to one or two days of the year when we remember her works and celebrate her life.
An advantage of thinking profoundly about death is it somehow keeps us away from bad deeds, mostly from hurting others (or at least encourages us to keep ourselves away from doing so). It also allows us to take big decisions in life and helps us stay focused on the things we enjoy doing, even if they do not generate much wealth.
Compared to the entire universe, human civilization is as small as a sand grain in a river bank. Let’s not compare the Earth with the entire universe or the Milky Way Galaxy. The solar system alone is 36 billion times larger than Earth, according to Futurism.com.
Although our physical existence is microscopic compared to the whole universe, our life is not an independent island. It is a complex social and political entity shaped by the generation of people who lived before our birth and also by the other people in the present day connected through the means of nationality, desire, art and faith.
As we owe the pride and disgrace of the human civilization to the generation of the people who preceded us, we are also responsible for shaping the life and fate of the generations to follow. In between the generations, there is a process called “death,” which cleans up the old and creates space for the new. It is an ironic melancholy of life that death is a painful process, yet it is inevitable, invincible and imperative, according to the law of nature.
