Why do some people fear death?

[xXRebeccaXx]

It is inevitable.

[Pinkfluff]

People often fear the unknown, and death certainly is that. From what I've seen it is only those who either train themselves to not fear death or who have strong religious beliefs that do not fear it. After all it is natural instinct to fear death. Maybe part of it is that no one (or at least almost no one) knows how or when they will die, so even if they aren't afraid of death itself that uncertainty about the circumstances can make it scary.

Personally I don't fear death, but I don't really want to die without ever having been able to really live.

[~RoadToTrista~]

It is inevitable.

Is that suppose to make it better?

[JungianZoe]

I lost my fear of death years ago.  I didn't lose my fear of things that could cause death (heights and airplanes for starters), but death itself doesn't frighten me.  I've spent my entire life since I was 7 years old researching what happens after death, a passion that started after I nearly drowned.  Then, around the time of my first suicide attempt at age 11, it was in preparation of the day I'd eventually kill myself.

Honestly, since my last attempt in 2005 (which will always be my last attempt) I haven't studied it so much.  I want to live this life for this life now, enjoying today instead of obsessing about what happens when it's all over.  But I still don't fear death.

[VeryGnawty]

It is inevitable.

I am less than convinced.  I think that the state of longevity research is actually going quite well.

[Lisbeth]

It is inevitable.

Thank god!!!

J.R.R.Tolkien called it "the gift of Illuvitar" in The Silmarillian. Better than continuing on in life forever.

[Pica Pica]

I think I'd like lots of deaths and rebirths, to stop life feeling long and flat - but to have a long flat life with one death at the end, is rather tasteless.

[tekla]

is rather tasteless

So pretty much par for the course and just like the rest of life.

Speaking of tasteless, death, and not fearing death, here's our friend the Honey Badger.

[AbraCadabra]

* Why do some people fear death? *

'cause it's one of the most deadly things that can happen to you, or?

That's pretty frightening --- unless you totally stoned and don't give a 3-pence.

Axelle

[Padma]

Someone once asked Woody Allen "What would you like people to be saying about you 100 years from now?" and he replied "Doesn't he look well!"

[Pica Pica]

That is the queeny-est narration to a natural history programme I've seen - having grown up on the reverential hushed tones of David Attenborough - I think I like it.

Uncle Sammy thought a lot about death.

Boswell: "But is not the fear of death natural to man?"
Johnson: "So much so, Sir, that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it."

He really did feel that much of life was filling in the 'vacuity' the emptiness, with various things until death came. He feared it completely.

It's like Goldsmith, when asked on his death bed whether his mind felt at ease responded with, 'No it is not'.

If fear of death is what keeps life spicy - I spose it may have it's uses.

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

For those who hold life so dear-
Death becomes their greatest fear...
And worry become a part of life-
Cutting like a two edged knife...
For death is always on their mind-
and pleasures in life are hard to find...
Fearing death is just a head-
as they lay down to rest upon the bed-
May I awake to see the dawn-
pray death don't take away the morn...
But alas life's purpose is quite Macbeth-
life is just a path to death !
   

Fear is based on something we think may happen, it's clearly a mental process which tries to predict the future - in that sense,  fear is a continuous  projection of our mind.
One could say that fear is always based on something that has not yet happened, that is imagination unrestricted by reality, therefore a fantasy of the mind rather than fact...

Happy mindfulness

Metta Zenda

[Pinkfluff]

I think I'd like lots of deaths and rebirths, to stop life feeling long and flat - but to have a long flat life with one death at the end, is rather tasteless.

Me too. I believe that the point of life is to experience the balance between the infinite and the finite. I mean, think about how radically different life would be if you could do anything without the risk of dying? If you knew you had eternity to do whatever earthly things you want? But of course because life is so short there has to be many of them --  infinitely many even. Thus, and endless string of very finite lives. I'm sure after so many centuries one would get bored after having seen and done everything. Time to die and be reborn to see things with a new set of eyes (both literally and figuratively).

This pattern isn't purely linear though, it is closer to fractal. During a single life to death of the body span, we go through many smaller deaths and rebirths as we continually change, lose parts of ourselves, and gain new ones. Getting laid off and later finding a new job, losing your favorite whatever and later getting another to replace it, or moving on to something else entirely.

Maybe people who fear death just haven't accepted it as a natural, and even healthy (under the right circumstances), part of life.

[Lisbeth]

* Why do some people fear death? *

'cause it's one of the most deadly things that can happen to you, or?

That's pretty frightening --- unless you totally stoned and don't give a 3-pence.

Axelle

There are worse things than dying. Go back and watch The Butterfly Effect.

[Elijah3291]

I dont know, I am fascinated by death and I think of it as a peaceful thing (obviously, not the actual occurrence of dying, that's not always peaceful)

I dont know why I am so enamored by death, and its not a "oh look how cool and emo I am" I just find it curious. Wondering about the soul, and when it leaves the body exactly, and what the body becomes once its dead, how it used to be a person.

I am going to become a mortician

I dont see a reason to fear death because once it happens, its over, just a second of possible pain, but then you wont even know it happened.  I guess people are scared of ceasing to exist, I however do not believe that people no longer exist once they die, I think that they are just no longer in human form.

[AbraCadabra]

Every one in a normal situation fears death - by design of nature.

Saying one doesn't is just deluding oneself.

Only if your situation becomes unbearably "abnormal" will you prefer death over life.

Axelle

[Amazon D]

What fear of death, it's living that is hell. Well it can be at times. I see death as that final resting place like when i am asleep deep in dreamland.. I'll be traveling the universe in death. Here on earth i am stuck in this shell we call a body.. i basically try to have one foot in the next world at all times.. I hold nothing here on earth dear to me except the fact that i will shed this shell and finally be free.. However i do know i must respect all things here on earth..

[annette]

you're right, it's inevitable, but I love my life as it is now and I just want to keep it the way it is for a while.
I can't say that I've a lot of fear for it but being dead is so irreversible and I think it's boring being dead.
Always the same view....the other side of the grass, no one to talk to, No....not a very good idea for Annette.

[xander]

Because no matter how hard one tries, it's something that can never be controlled.

[Sephirah]

For the same reason some people fear transitioning.

Loss. Of losing everything you've spent a lifetime accruing. Friendships, relationships, love, security, respect, but most of all I suspect a fear of losing oneself in the process.