Afraid to die?
With the coming All Souls Day, and this column coming out on Tuesday October 31, this is a good time as any to talk about the fear of dying. Death is inevitable and will eventually happen to all of us sooner or later. As they say, "Nobody has survived dying yet." Then there is the question, "Are there more living people than dead people at this point in time?" Latest world population census puts the world's population at 7.7 billion. If the earth had inhabitants over the last 10,000 years and we average some 500,000 deaths a year in all those years, then there would be 5 billion dead people in the last 10,000 years. We must have reached the equilibrium point sometime in the year 2000, so now there are more people alive than dead, and the world population will keep on growing unless the birth rate will slow down.
The uncertainty of what comes after death is the main reason some people fear dying. As Woody Allen once said, "I don't like dying, I don't see a future in it." Young people in particular are more apprehensive because they have not lived and loved long enough and are looking forward to doing many more things. Advances in medicine and technology have actually prolonged human life, so expectations of a longer productive life are but natural for the Baby Boomers up to the Millennials. Recent pronouncements by the Singularity Movement alleged that those who will still be alive by 2050 will probably have life expectancy of 125 years, because of the exponential growth in the advances in medical science and technology. Still, everybody will die, some sooner rather than later.
Religion has a lot to do with a person's attitude to dying and death. For Christians who believe in a life after death and heaven and hell, such belief will assuage fear. In religions that believe in reincarnation, their belief also makes them at peace with death. For Muslims who also believe in an afterlife, death is not to be feared as demonstrated by suicide bombers. To people with religion, death is just a transition to another phase and is not to be feared. The stronger the faith in one's religion, the braver you are facing death.
As people grow older, they become more aware of their mortality even if life longevity has improved because of the physical toll on the body. Older people or senior citizens also tend to attend more funerals than baptisms, so they are more aware of the passing of their contemporaries. I have observed and talked to some older people, including my parents when they were alive, who were not fearful of death. They have lived productive lives, have provided enough for their children to have a good chance to live decent and productive lives, and believe that they have left the world in a better place than when they arrived. And all of them were religious in their own way and to their particular religion. I also will always remember what my father told me that, "When we die, it is because God believes that is the best time for us to die."
Observing the current political maneuverings in the Philippines and in the world for power and influence with the oppressions that go with it, these politicians must believe that they will never die or they have such a long life ahead of them to bargain with their gods. It would be relevant to ask them, "What kind of God do they pray to, or if they pray at all."
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