David Bronson

Sometimes the constant harping on death seems, while valid, also maybe not entirely accurate (and therefore potentially wasteful and unfortunate). I wonder if it occurs to any or many as much as it does to me that, just as we’re in a nonstop cycle of dying, we’re simultaneously in the same unending cycle of living?

I’ve heard it boiled down numerous times that the only real fear is the fear of death, and that this is actually the root cause of all anxieties. This makes sense to me in some ways and in others not really.

As a logic problem it seems to work. That is, if there were no death, why would we logically worry about anything? Although once this apparency (apparence? appearance?) is moved past, it is easily seen how no death, i.e. no time limit, would become horribly, even horrifically oppressive. Maybe it just seems like that to me – when I actually try to picture what it would be like to reach the age of 200, 1,000, 1,000,000 and finally never-ending years old (this is all taking for granted, of course, that the issue of physical & mental deterioration could be overcome, which I know of more than a few very intelligent people who think this is inevitable), it really doesn’t seem like it would be that fun.

How long would it take before our accepted dynamics of the parent/child relationship completely deteriorate? Or those of a married couple. Of course I’m well aware that many would maintain these accepted dynamics are constantly shifting and un-becoming even now, in our version of existence, i.e. the finite kind.

But I don’t know how exciting it would be to outgrow everything. Would all communication stop? Would all attempts at anything, for that matter, cease completely, as we all turn into discrete universes unto ourselves?

Or would things end up remaining much as they are now, a ceaseless attempt at moving forward, only on an infinitely longer scale?