How I Deal With Death

I just want to be blunt and honest about how I, an atheist, deals with death.

You have to take in account that I'm pretty stoic in life, so this isn't everybody, just how I am.

I don't cry. If I do, it's a tear and nothing more.

I believe that it's a revolving process when we die,

As Ali A. Rizvi told a friend,

"I know that we continue to exist through the earth. This is my attempt at being euphemistic about your fertilizer theory. As part of this huge reservoir of terrestrial carbon, we die and become part of the earth, which gives rise to new life, as it once gave rise to us. That is also very powerful to me in a more collective, worldly sense.

I also know that I've only been conscious for some 38 years out of the 13.8 billion years that the universe has been in existence. Everything from plankton to dinosaurs and the formation of the UN to the moon landing happened before I was even self-aware. I don't miss those things, nor do I recall that huge chunk of time as horrible or upsetting. I simply can't recall it at all because I didn't exist.

Not knowing anything else, I work on the assumption that after death, we go back into the pre-birth phase. I don't feel like that would bother me any more than it did during those first 13.8 billion years. This is actually a really comforting, peaceful idea when you give it some thought. Especially because it makes me value this little sliver of time I have as a conscious, living being for a few decades a lot more than if I thought it was just transit time to someplace else. It also helps me not take my life or that of others for granted."

Death is hard, but death can also be looked at as something beautiful. Yes it is the end of this life, but it's a way of starting over from our most simplest form, star matter.

Hope that helps in some way.