The Life After Life

There’s not much that really freaks me out, at least consistently, but I have one thing that sometimes sneaks up on me and really does a number on me.

“What happens when we die?”

I will get washed over by this panic; my body will shut down for a few minutes while this thought consumes me, and makes me reel with angst. This is one of the few things that will cause me to have a panic attack. I can’t function when it hits, and I have to let it wash over me, have a mini freak-out, and then try to get back to work or play or whatever I was doing at the time. Sometimes I am around someone who I can talk about it with, but not always. It usually manifests itself in a sense of, “What happens after you die? Is there a Heaven and Hell, is there nothing? What is this life we lead all about?” I get this lead weight feeling in the pit of my stomach and I get light headed, and I start to really get scared. It comes on from nowhere, seemingly, and it becomes like a distant thought by like an hour later. But in that moment, it is overwhelming.

It’s the fear of possibly going to Hell. Or of just no longer existing. The fact that I am here, right now, composing this, and it may have an impact on someone’s life, or not, and then POOF! I am gone and it’s all over for me. How can this be? Is there more than just this life? There are so many battling opinions out there in the world that claim to be the one truth, but are they? We don’t know. The same blind faith is what makes people follow Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or even Atheism, along with all the other belief structures. As one believes in G-d to the Nth degree, another believes in Nothing to the Nth degree. And so forth. Regardless of what you believe, something happens when you die, and that something may be nothing, but whatever it is has the power to complete invade me and turn me into a sniveling 4 year old child, wanting his mommy.

I think that this “fear” has kept me from trying things in my life; all of those extreme things, and even some that aren't extreme at all. I would gravitate away from them for fear of something going wrong even though the chances were slim that anything bad would happen. But I am trying to at least face my fear more these days. Case in point, on my last trip to Hawaii, my brother and I took surfing lessons. Tod, my brother, asked me if I wanted to do it with him, because his lady didn't know how to swim. I was super psyched about it, I have never surfed, it looks like fun. But then my brother started reading that we had to sign a waiver, just in case, I started to freak a little. There was a chance that we could be attacked by a shark. Or swept out to sea, or dashed on the reef in the shallow waters. These chances were slim indeed, but I still began to think twice about whether or not I wanted to do it. It turned out to be a perfect experience, and I now have a new appreciation for surfers, and dental hygiene (most surfers are missing some teeth from taking a board to the face at one point or another).

I always feel a bit nebbish with stuff like this because everyone has done these things and very few have been hurt or killed by these things; Bungee jumping, Skydiving, etc. All of these things are fairly safe, in the way that life is fairly safe. You could walk out of your house and be killed by a skydiver falling out of the sky just as easily as you could plummet to your death while skydiving. But still, this thing keeps happening to me and every time it freaks me out as strong as the previous time.

I wish I knew where this thought came from. But I guess that is like trying to figure out the meaning of life. You won’t ever know that answer until you are at the point where you can be let in on the secret, because you definitely won’t be sharing it with anybody.