I've been wondering about death lately. Humankind is confronted with death everyday. Whether it's in the newspapers (140 people killed in a plane crash) or be it by hearing it over the TV. Death is omnipresent and yet it's abstract. You can't touch it, you can't see it, you can't hear it ... Until it's there. And then it's too late. I was confronted with death in my last dream. The doctors told me I had a brain tumor, an unoperable cancer that only allowed me to live a few more weeks, maybe months. Not everything about this dream was bad, maybe even nothing. All my loved ones were by my side to spend my last time on earth with me in the best way they could. And that was nice. And yet there was this oppressive feeling that I could die at any moment, just drop dead! But I didn't. I woke up.
The moment I woke up, I thought I was dead. The next moment I thought I had cancer and then, only a few minutes later, the only thing that was left there to think about was Death. The humankind's longest and most loyal companion. The feeling of death was something abstract before, something I didn't think could exist. I dreamt about death before, don't get me wrong. I once drove off a cliff and I was killed by a massmurderer in another dream, but this... This was new! It's not the moment itself, the moment when you take your last breath, that's scary, it's the fact that you know that you are going to die.
People have the talent of suppression. They just forget that they could die any moment and live as they're supposed to. Sometimes we even forget that we are mortal... Death is everywhere, we just close our eyes to it so we don't have to face it, maybe even when we have to. But I think ignoring Death isn't the right thing to do, nor is it to think about it all the time, like the stoics did. But we have to admit that we are not immortal. Unlike the 'Carpe Diem' that demands constant enjoyment from you and that you seize the day, the only thing you really have to do is to know the feeling of Life.