fear and death

Perhaps it's all the thinking about higher consciousness I've been doing lately. Hearing ideas about reincarnation and enduring existence and whatnot. Perhaps its the fantastic season of Dexter I'm watching nightly. Perhaps it's just coincidence. But it seems like death is all around lately, popping into my thoughts even more than usual.
Courtney remarked last week that Christopher Hitchens had died. My joking and probably in poor taste response was, "oh yeah? Wonder where he is these days."
A few days before that a friend told me, very assertively, that everyone's greatest fear is most definitely death. I know that it's hers. As certainly as I know it is not mine.
Perhaps it's odd that I am able to so easily accept any post-death possibility... almost so easily that it's without feeling. Perhaps it's that numbness I've talked so much about.
Perhaps it's a sliver of enlightenment. Perhaps more likely, it's the anti-depressants.

Buddhists believe in reincarnation. Our consciousness lives on and is affected in the next life by our karma in this one.
I don't understand all the ins and outs... but it's possible.

Christians believe in a concept similar to karma. When we die one supreme being weighs our sins against our righteousness and rewards or punishes us accordingly. We go to Heaven, or we go to Hell. If you're Muslim, you got to Janna, or you go to Jahannam.
Sounds harsh... but it could be the case.

Jews, essentially same deal. Our actions impact the way in which we go on... ideally we progress and become closer and closer to G-d. Our ancestors are watching over us from this place.
Sounds nice.

Atheists don't think that anything happens after we die. We die, we rot. We cease to exist, there is nothing else. We return to the earth.
Sounds fine to me. What is there to worry about then?

Agnostics just don't know what the fuck is going on.
Now we're talking. None of us actually know what the fuck is happening now or is going to happen then. Kudos for admitting it.

The only option that sounds quite unfavorable is this whole Hell scenario the Judeo-Christian religions have cooked up. I'd opt out of burning for all eternity if possible.

It's funny how no one who has a "near-death experience" describes going to hell. It's always a tunnel with a bright light... bathed in warmth and comfort, perhaps a lost loved one waiting for them... never fire and brimstone and pitchfork-wielding demons.
If the Christians are right, I can't believe that many people are making the cut. Something's afoot.

Of course, the atheists and those who consider science their only religion would say that this scenario is simply nothing more than biochemical reactions. That these images are simply what's produced by an oxygen-starved brain. And perhaps they are.
In my first book I wrote about the moment when I stopped fearing the atheist post-death scenario. A month after I turned 21 I overdosed on prescription sleeping pills and tequila. I might have died if not for medical attention. But in that moment, through bleary teary eyes on brown shag carpet, I didn't care. I was in so much pain that the only thing I cared about was making it stop. I didn't care if I had to do something terrible to make that happen. I didn't care if I didn't wake up.
But I did wake up.
Five or six hours later I awoke, wrists tied to a bed with medical tape, a tube down my throat.
The time in between was so... still. Completely silent. It was, unfortunately, instantaneously gone. But in some ways it was the relief I was looking for. It was the most complete rest I had ever experienced. No thoughts, no dreams. That time was as simple and as black as the charcoal that was now draining from my every orifice.
It was nothingness. And nothingness felt good.
I knew then that if nothing came after this life except nothingness, I had no fear. It was peaceful. It was simple. Beautiful, in a way.

Personally, I don't believe that is what happens when we die. I think that we do go on to something else. What, I have no idea. I think that death is just a transition to something new. A change of clothes, as some people put it.
I'm intrigued to find out. I believe it will be quite the adventure.

And if it's not... I'm ready for that too. I don't wish to hasten it, by any means, as I'm enjoying myself here at the moment, but it will come when it's meant to (I have to believe).

All this writing about death and I've done very little writing about fear. I've done no writing about what I do actually fear, which was the initial intent of this blog.

But alas. It's 2:15 am. I'll have to put off my fears till another day.