I'm Afraid... of Many Things

I keep thinking about Bilal.

I know.

I hate this because I barely knew him so I'm wondering what right I have to write about him, but since he's in my head, I'll write anyway.

Bilal and I weren't even remotely friends, but I'm horrified he's dead. Last week was different, I just heard the news and the shock was fresh, but I've had some time to process it, and the more I think about him (which I can't help) the sadder I become.

I don't think that he was a very nice person, but I really, really, wish he hadn't died. He hadn't crossed my mind in ages and now I keep seeing his face in my head and it's just sad.

From thinking about Bilal I migrated to just thinking about plain old death. With a capital D. I'm scared of dying. I'm terrified. Like scared stiff.

The weird thing is that I'm not scared of actually dying itself, what terrifies me no end is the idea of simply ceasing to be. I can handle my body dying, but I keep wondering "What will happen to my consciousness? Will I still be able to think? Will I still be self aware?"

I can't imagine not thinking. I can imagine not breathing, not moving, not seeing or hearing even, but I cannot imagine not having a self-aware consciousness. It's like, I wouldn't mind death so much if I had 100% assurance that my mind would continue to exist. Sure, being dead isn't cool but if nothing else at least being able to think in the dark or whatever would be some comfort.

I thought about it this entire week and it drove me crazy. I told myself all the usual ones: Everybody dies, there's no way to avoid it, but it was that second one that really got me. I was literally screaming in my head to myself 'there really is no way to get out of dying, what the fuck, I didn't ask for this, why did I have to be born in the first place???'

So the short version of this is that I'm still scared out of my mind of dying, but then again, the birth thing makes me feel better. The way I see it, at some point, we weren't born and we didn't know that we existed or whatever, and we don't remember where we came from or where we were before we were born, so I'm guessing that at the very least, when we die, we go back to the before-we-were-born-place, and since being in that place in the first place can't have been so terrible (hey we were eventually born weren't we? And life is a bitch sometimes but it's not that bad) then going back there after dying can't be that bad either.

Either way, I'm still terrified about what happens to my mind. The body I don't really care about. You can get some beautiful caskets for not very much nowadays, so I'll be happy being laid to rest in a peaceful cemetery somewhere surrounded by trees and flowers. Of course, it's important to make every effort to stay alive by all means possible and to live to 120 if possible, but I won't really go shit crazy over the loss of my body upon death. What I will go mental over (although I don't know how possible this might be under the circumstances) would be if my mind and ability to think ceased to exist.

Point is, like the rest of you, I don't know, and like some of you, I'm scared shitless. I now know that Bilal died of an accidental overdose, but it doesn't really help me deal with the fact that he's dead. I hope he's okay, wherever he is, and maybe this is born out of selfish fear, but life is hard enough as it is, it's unfair for death to be harder. I hope he's okay, and I hope we'll be okay too.

P.S. I am BOILING MAD that there are actually creatures that are immortal. As in are you freaking fucking with my head??? Why the hell is a damn JELLYFISH immortal and not a human being??????