Well, ok, yes it is. But only in context. When someone we love and care about dies. It
saddens us. We will no longer be able to spend time or talk to our friend. We
experience that loss as grief. However, when we think about our own death, it
doesn’t necessarily have to depress us. It all depends on how you approach
it.
At some point, all of us will die, unless we experience a
singularity that allows us to live forever. I’m not holding my breath on
that. I’d like to life for a few hundred
years, but that isn’t realistic at this time.
And being a humanist, I am nothing, if not realistic.
So, I accept that at some point I will die and miss out on everything that will occur after my death. And yeah, that is a little depressing. But here is how the average Humanist turns that around.
Knowing that we are eventually going to die makes life precious to us. We have a finite amount of time to live. It would be a shame to waste it. This is why a huge part of what it is to be a Humanist is to live life to the fullest. This is a choice we make and yes, it means we are living life intentionally too. Because you can’t live life fully unless you live it intentionally.
So don’t think about death as a depressing thing. Instead, use the knowledge of death to spur you to embrace life fully.
Image: "Two Sad Girls At A Grave" by Stuart Miles http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
