About Epicurus
The phantom of death
by Michele Tucci
There is not such a thing like death. In fact there exist two phenomena which are included in the laymen's idea of death: our own death and the death of everybody else. The two objects are completely different and must be dealt separately. The death of people other than ourselves, as the death of animals or the end of non-living entities, brings us a feeling of loss, which is stronger if we are in close terms with the person, the animal or the object the existence of which has finished. Such a type of sadness has been described and analyzed in numberless essays and pieces of fiction. There is very little to add on such a point.
Our own death is quite a different problem. Ancient philosophers knew the reason why: when we exist, our own death does not. When death takes over, we are not there anymore. Therefore, we and our own death never exist at the same time, at the same place. Reasoning in a logical way, there should be an instant of transition, an infinitesimal bit of time when the passage occurs. Still, such entity seems to be relatively meaningless, since death and fear of death are something very different from the process of dying and fear of pain. Dying is a very corporeal action, while death in itself is a point of speculation. It is a well known fact that the dread of a material object is far more bearable than the one of an abstract entity. Enough of this...
Therefore, we are left with the main problem: if we and our own death exist in separated portions of time, so that every contact is completely impossible, why are we so afraid of death? What do we really fear?
In order to understand the point, we must consider the way our mind works. In its functioning, the mind shows a remarkable omnipotence syndrome: it cannot bear not to be able to grasp something. Since in fact our own death cannot be grasped, the mind tries to put a remedy to such an awful situation by creating a phantom: the phantom of death.
The way such a creature is brought into live is quite simple: the mind collects all the bits and pieces which have some vague connection with the idea of death, including past experiences of pain, pieces of literature we have read since school time, feelings of loss regarding any possible situation, the bad smell of decaying, depression, the warnings of the religious leaders, scenes we have seen on television, horror movies we have been watching while eating popcorn, and so on.
As for every ghost, the phantom of death is made up of nothing. If you look straight into its eyes, you will see emptiness. When you are involved in the activities of your daily life, it will appear in the background of your mind, subtracting energy from you and obscuring your judgment. Such a situation will go on every single day of your life.
There are several ways to get rid of such an unpleasant parasite. The best one is the simplest: getting in good terms with our own death. Once we understand that we and our own death exist in separate realms, friendship becomes possible. The details... It is our own personal work.
Playing Russian roulette, drugging yourself to death or dropping your Harley and decorating the asphalt with bits of your brain ought to be considered rather ineffective ways to deal with the phantom of death. The earth is saturated with human bones and nobody really cares. After all, the comprehension that our own death and the phantom of death are quite different entities is the beginning. The rest is up to you...