death?

recently, my religion professor inspired me to think and write about this topic and with finals coming up, of course i'm going to blog and procrastinate.  warning* this is obviously morbid so sorry if i scare you or make you uncomfortable


there are a lot of sayings about death us young people like to say "life's a slow death, no one makes it out alive anyway" or, my personal favorite, "live fast, die pretty."  we're young, so we can say these things but, for older people, these are uncomfortable things to think about.  we've all thought about death and have had death affect us one way or another.  it's always around us. 


my religion professor, joan earley (who, if you appreciate brilliant teachers, i highly suggest u take her class if you go to suny albany), mentioned being afraid to die.  most of us are.  death is terrifying.  it's something we all know well, but actually know nothing about.  


it seems so childish to ask, but what happens when we die? we have no idea other than those who experience near-death experiences but, even then, there's a host of scientific theories about what happens in those times.


this is when religion and faith comes in.  i'm not scared to die.  i'm not scared of what's going to happen to me.  i believe that something wonderful will happen at death, but what i am scared of is time.  


i'm scared of not having enough time to do what i need to do.  what if i don't leave a mark on the world? the truth is terrifying - trillions of people have passed through this world and how many have gone unremembered?  out of those trillions, how many do we actually remember?  how many important people are actually written about?  not many.  what about all those other people that have lived?  they might've lived a good live, a horrible life, or an average life.  we'll never know and for most of us, we fall in that category.  we affect the lives of our family and friends, maybe our neighborhoods, but to affect the world?  to alternate history? that takes a lot of talent.  we leave that to the few.


i probably made you feel like crap but that's the reality of it.  we can't live in fear of death.  you kind of just have to live.  okay, yeah, it's scary not knowing what will happen because everything we know, everything that is available to our 5 senses, cannot explain what happens.  it's based on faith and you can believe whatever you want to make it a lot easier, but you should at least believe in something.