Epicurus, a Greek philosopher from the 3rd century BCE, is known for his philosophy of pleasure. Like the Stoics, he believed that to find true joy in life, one must overcome the fear of death.
For Epicurus, death is the end of everything, a return to nothingness, and he did not believe in an afterlife.
He famously said, “Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death occurs, we are not.”
Why Death Isn’t to Be Feared
Death is an integral part of life. Everything in this world is subject to the test of time and eventually disappears. It’s a fate no one can escape.
Paradoxically, without death, life as we know it wouldn’t exist. To live means to accept that one day we will die.
As conscious beings, the idea of death causes us constant anxiety. We use every means at our disposal to avoid this thought.
According to Freud, this is one reason humans invented God. The idea that life would end definitively after death is, Freud said, an absurdity we countered by inventing God and the notion of an Afterlife.
Death is beyond our control. We don’t choose when, where, or how we die. It cannot be the subject of discourse or debate because how can we ponder something we cannot experience? We have never heard anyone complain about being dead.
In reality, it’s our fear of the unknown that gives death its sinister and dreadful character. This fear is tied to our ability to imagine the worst scenarios, to envision virtual situations about which we are uncertain.
The fear of death is thus the product of our imagination, fueled by internal projections and representations.
For Epicurus, death should not concern us. As long as we live, we will never meet death. And when death arrives, we no longer exist to experience it. Therefore, we have no reason to fear it.
We are aware of ourselves and the external world through our senses. In death, all sensation and perception of reality are reduced to nothing. When we die, we feel nothing and sense nothing. How, then, can the absence of sensation be something?
Are we afraid of being born? Did we choose to come into the world? When we don’t exist, we cannot think or ask questions. We have no sensation of reality. Similarly, when we exist, death is absent, and when death comes, we no longer exist.
To fear death is, therefore, to fear nothing.
The Suffering That Comes with Death Is Rooted in Selfishness
When we lose a loved one, what saddens us the most isn’t death itself, but the loss of someone dear to us. It’s the fact that we are deprived of their presence, their support, and the laughter they brought into our lives.
What pains us is no longer being able to share moments of pleasure and joy with the person who has passed away. It’s the emptiness and void that death creates within us that are the sources of grief and suffering.
At its core, the sadness that accompanies death is often rooted in selfish reasons. The tears we shed are tears of absence and loss, not of the experience of death itself.
It reminds us of our own impending death, to which we associate the sorrow that the death of others brings.
And this is perfectly normal; it’s not about changing this reaction. It’s about being aware of it and accepting it. We must recognize that the death of others hurts us, not those who have departed.
For the dying, it’s not death that is the source of suffering, but what precedes it. If the dying person suffered before passing, we can say that death was a relief, a liberation. In death, everything disappears, including regrets, anxiety, and remorse.
Acceptance of Death is the Key
If we cannot escape the inevitable truth of death, we can, however, accept it.
We desire immortality because this world encapsulates everything about our existence. We are attached to it, and the fear of losing it haunts us. We want to remain here forever.
For the Stoics, desiring something beyond our control and exceeding our limits is madness.
We all know that our existence is limited and that everything in this world will eventually disappear. Yet, we refuse to accept this inevitability, which is the source of our suffering.
Our suffering is not related to a real experience in the present moment but to a virtual reality we fear might come true. Our inability to live in the present moment is the true source of our misery.
Fearing death means fleeing our true reality and projecting ourselves into another that is beyond our control. Perhaps it’s a way to hide our fear of truly living, or an excuse to avoid facing our responsibilities.
Refusing to accept death gives us excuses not to face life, to escape the present moment.
If death is unavoidable, what is the point of dwelling on it endlessly? What is the purpose of such contemplation?
If thinking about death helps us accept it and embrace life as it is, then it can guide us toward wisdom and inner peace. However, thinking about death to find excuses not to live is like self-punishment for a reason that doesn’t exist.
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