Afterlife (or afterdeath)

"What if there is nothing after life?" I wanted to ask her. "What if, when you die, that was really it? Your body and your soul, if they can even be separated into two entities, are simply snuffed out, like a candle flame in the wind? What if there is no better place that you go on to, to begin another part of your journey? What if you simply go back to being the stardust and ash that we were all made from?" So many questions, but it was not the time to ask (it is never the time to ask), because nobody wanted to hear them. Nobody knows the answer anyway.

I think finality scares people. The thought that when you die, you are reduced back to the nothingness that you came from. So we create the idea of a soul, something intangible that can last forever, even after our bodies have long rotted away. We create the idea of something after, of simply moving on to the next part of our journey. Of someone guiding us on to a happier place, whichever religion you may be. We cling on to the idea as desperately as we cling on to life, wanting to believe, comforting ourselves with that belief, because it would be too terrifying otherwise; the thought of utter oblivion, non-existence, like you never were.

Or maybe I am wrong. I'm sure everyone has their own viewpoint on this, but there's no way anyone can really know, unless you're dead. For myself, right now I cannot say I am afraid; somehow the thought of oblivion attracts me, but I shall see when my time comes. I think more than death, I fear the life unlived. But the irony is that I do not seem to be doing much with my life.

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I was swinging back and forth between conflicting emotions like a pendulum, but right now I'm curiously calm - I think I've accepted it as an inevitability. 

I always knew, always always - I spent my emo teenage years crying over the human condition, crying over everything and nothing, always always feeling sad. 

But this is different, this is too close to home, too close to heart. When you really have to face it, death and the inescapability of it, somehow you find yourself at a loss. Especially when it happens to your loved ones. 但生离死别是人生必经历的事，所以再舍不得也得学着接受。