The top ways I fear dying!
Death is a very feared concept. Extremely so, one of the most feared, except for public speaking. This reminds me of this Jerry Seinfeld joke below (22 seconds long).
Anyway, death is very feared and much of religion focuses on what will happen to us after we die. The afterlife is such a topical discussion because we are preoccupied with our fates. I think about this often and consider how I think I will die. I think I have it down to a few options. I will do a top 5, by probability and also things that occupy my mind.
1) Climate change is one that has been on the surface of my mind. I learned about the incredibly harmful impacts of global warming/ climate change in my Sophmore year of college. On an “all-school trip” at my boarding school, I was part of the environmental group. We scheduled interviews with environmentally focused individuals and organizations. One lady’s discussion with us changed my perception and life forever. Since then I’ve been concerned about floods, fires, oxygen pollution, soil degradation, biodiversity, antibiotics resistant superbugs and other countless factors and negative outputs of anthropogenic climate change.
2) For some strange reason, ever since I was a little child I thought I was going to be shot! This is not in the culture of the household I live in. It’s not something that I have come even remotely close to. I have had no close calls or any run-ins or anything of the sort. However, I just always understood as a child that I was really annoying and one day someone was going to shoot me. This was at first a baseless fear, save for the innately understood dynamic of supreme gun surplus and the dearth of mental health capacity in America. However, I have felt for the last decade or so that my being shot would be the direct result of me taking some sort of stand or dying in the name of something I care about, love, or am fighting for. This may have been delusions of grandeur but it’s what I thought. I do not any longer feel this will be the case. If I’m shot, there will be no personal aspect to it, people will not do it for a concrete reason of connection-based origin. Instead, I will be shot by an autonomous and or remotely controlled robot that is destroying me in order to minimize the strain on the global resources. This video seems just about right. Watch the first 55 seconds will be more than enough. These videos definitely scare me.
3) A white supremacist terrorist attack (indirect, country’s degradation, political violence, instability failed state stuff etc…). This one is not as new as you may think, but it has certainly peaked. I am concerned about a group of ignorant individuals gaining power through sheer will and a massive disrespect for credentials, meritocracy, democracy. I’m afraid that the identity that many people face is based not in the contributions resulting from their actions nor are its origins from the constitution of their character. Instead, these people are unifying around a mythology-based in faux superiority and violent dominance. These people taking power is very dangerous to us all personally. Anyways, given a plethora of factors, I have become concerned enough about these people’s rise to a prominent news story status. The glaring and indefensible lack of accountability and lawlessness that’s being reinforced and created at the moment is incredibly dangerous. As a result, conditions stemming from these developments are among my greatest death fears.
4) A new way that I fear death is a new one. Recently there have been some concerns about the degree to which I take certain physical risks. Biking by cars, running in the snow, cliff jumping, having some endurance sport-based aspirations that are less than completely safe, all the way to having a desire to skydive.
5) Artificial intelligence. I am worried about robots for a plethora of reasons. This was mentioned earlier but singularity deserves its own spot. There are massive technological advancements that will create a series of relentlessly interesting and potentially nightmarish scenarios. I fear robots! Drone warfare, AI, genetic mutation armies. Lots of threats here. Both supernatural and more mundane and non-climactic.
I have never skydived yet. I am not overly afraid of death. I do think about ways to keep myself safe a lot. I do think my lifestyle will enable me to live a long and fruitful life. The above factors are what I see maybe obstacles. I am not afraid of dying! I am merely afraid of dying before I launch a specific project I’m working on and have been conceiving of since… SOPHOMORE year of high school! This has been a goal of mine for over a decade and I haven’t been doing enough to get where I want with it.
I often envision myself getting into a bad biking accident and bleeding out in the street. My parting thoughts, if I were to die at that moment, would be this… I imagine thinking about everyone in my life recalling the countless ways that I have failed them. The other is complete and utter disappointment in how I have failed myself by not completing and launching this life passion project. This thought, drives me, both to seize the day, and get executing about goals that matter to me. It also keeps me from engaging in needless risks like skydiving, which I fully intend to do as soon as I film/release this project! Thanks for hearing about some of my death fears. Interesting that it ended with me discussing the fear of not finishing a goal.
That is true because, this goal of mine, is my life purpose. Thanks for being here it means so much to me!