WHAT'S THE POINT?

Books have been written, documentaries have been made, many self help experts, psychologists and philosophers have posited not once, not a thousand times but nearly a million times to death being something that we shouldn't be afraid of.

Herbert Fingarette is one of those philosophers who spent decades studying and teaching philosophy of life and even wrote a book about death among other books. 

He taught philosophy for forty years at the University of California and was convinced that death is not something that one should be afraid of or even worry about. For what is death when you no longer feel,see or understand? 

It is basically what you and I through many sources have gotten to believe.

However, there is more to death than the basic understanding of mortality and leaving this world to a painless next life(who knows?). 

There is more to staring at death and understanding the psychology of dying.

I read a story about a young man where the he tells how some experiences he had growing up formed his fears that have till today put the idea of death in his mind. After surviving terrific accidents, he clearly went into a position of recognizing that death can be there facing us( Literally the nimeona kifo kwa macho yangu situation). It's scary.

He shared how he is lucky to be alive when there are others who had the same experiences and died,got blind, were paralyzed or got amputated yet he walked away okay,not once. That in itself is enough to make you have fears and even appreciate life itself without doubt. 

Nobody wants to die, and fears form from this realization that death comes and we don't want it. That's what Herbert Fingarette said as well.

He shared in a You Tube documentary, Being 97, about how death predominantly became his daily thought at old age. His entire life, he had lived teaching a philosophy that now at 97 had become clearly pointless as all he believed in had vanished and the reality contradicted his early days and the  philosophy he thought was right. The new reality was that his next phase was death,and it was almost becoming the only thought left. 

He shared about how he felt to be a 97 year old, helpless and contended with the idea of being aided in nearly everything, accepting that at that age,he couldn't work or do anything alone and needed help even when he felt otherwise. Naturally,he had slowed down almost to a stop and that stop that stared at him haunted him.

He shared how lonely he was after the death of his wife who had been married to him for seventy years and how her death took half of his life.

He asked the question,what's the point of all these we do? Only to age and worry about death and nothing else?

He admitted that he wanted to hang around a little longer even when he couldn't do the things he used to do all his life.

While sitting outside facing the trees in the backyard,he shared how he felt, that we don't appreciate things in life till it's too late and it's then that we realize that there is beauty that we have missed all our lives yet it has been there for us when we had enough time to enjoy. And everything gets to a point of regret.

Even when he admitted to have been lucky to have had a successful and happy life,the question remained to him,what's the point?

His view about life and his transition from an energetic, highly convinced man on death as a non issue to a worried old man facing a reality that cancels his entire life belief,is what I find a lesson about life.

We cannot live what we think,but the reality that there is for us,. We are only certain about things theoretically,but living the days and in full glare is what forms life changing experiences. It is no doubt that only an old man like Herbert can teach you about what it is to live life,and not what we think about it.

That documentary gives you a life changing perspective. Death is inevitably a thing we worry about. But you won't begin to understand it until you are in it's line of possibility and occurrence.

Many of us wish to die, thinking about how it can solve all the problems left. Is it worth it? Is living worth it? How about the idea of dying and the thoughts sorrounding death? It's a whole psychological torment. It's a mind boggling thought.

Even as death is natural,human beings don't love to die, even those who wish to die know that it is better to hang around a little longer, just with more appreciation of life and a better life.

It's hard to understand these things. We can only think. We can only try to reasonate with the right philosophy that makes our lives better, remembering no philosophy of life and death is right or wrong. It's all human. And death is death,so is life