Self-Assessment on Death We Are Essay

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Even if there is a world hereafter, because that world will be so inconceivably different, I cannot enter it calmly, with open arms. Part of me is glad that I cannot, like Emily Dickinson say coolly: "Because I could not stop for death/he kindly stopped for me." When I am older, perhaps, I may be able to confront death with resigned acceptance. I have known people facing illness and old age who say that they have no regrets, and simply surrender and bow to the inevitable. But I can only think of all of the things I still wish to do in life, when I hear the world 'death.' I think of my loved ones, of children whom I will never be able to see grow old. I even wonder who will take care of my pets.

Our culture and other cultures deal with death through euphemisms. The metaphors of a long sleep, of going into the darkness, and passing away reflect a need to soften the blow of the loss to humankind and the loss to the self when a unique individual loses his or her life. There is part of me that will always yearn to experience more, who stubbornly believes in possibility.
Death is the end of possibility within the framework of what is recognizably human.

I cannot offer a grand philosophical speech about how I know I will die someday, and that the views of other cultures and peoples have reinforced the commonness of my fate. I still struggle with what death truly means, and try not to dwell upon its reality on a daily basis. When I face it, someday, I realize I will have to regard death with a more bracing sense of realism. Until then I can only offer my honesty and a heart that rages against the dying of the light.

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"Self-Assessment On Death We Are" (2011, March 16) Retrieved May 12, 2024, from
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"Self-Assessment On Death We Are" 16 March 2011. Web.12 May. 2024. <
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"Self-Assessment On Death We Are", 16 March 2011, Accessed.12 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/self-assessment-death-11186