One time I got ill, gravely ill. It has been three years since I got ill at the time, so this struck deeply. Thoughts of my mortality flooded my mind, even after the illness passed. It was not easy, handling these thoughts. More than once I wept at the thought of my inevitable death, the truth that states I will, one day, no longer experience this wonderous world. When the emotional depth of the thoughts weakened, I explored ways to cope with this fact people tend to ignore.
Death: the gradual process of all bodily activity permanently ending, most notably respiration, heartbeat and neural activity. I exclude any deaths that are not by natural causes, such as deaths by capital prejudice, for that those deaths are rooted in social structure rather than nature and thus ought to be discussed in a different manner.
1) The world is often divided into opposites: right and wrong, Yin and Yang, light and dark. All these pairs are proposed as oppositional, but they are also complementary—there is no right without wrong, no Yin without Yang, no light without dark. Likewise, there is no life without death. Two sides of the same coin.
Likewise with wants: there is no desire without aversion. When we desire one thing, we often avert its opposite, and vice versa. When we fear (avert) death, it means we desire life. This aversion is a calling to live our lives rather than exist in them. The "living" in question is different for every individual, but a common element is a drive to live.
2) Death brings a place for another life. When trees die, they leave behind land for new trees to grow. If the trees never died, that piece of land would have rotted. All trees are meant to live for an amount of time, and if that means around 120 years, then it is around 120 years. Likewise with humans: we can only live for so long. If our body calls for death, we ought to accept that. Death will come around sooner or later, and it could come at any moment. There is no circumvention for that.
The universe began with stars. Those stars exploded—died—and brought galaxies to life. With the formation of galaxies came planets, one of which being dear Earth. Though my explanation of the universe's formation is rather simplified, the fact remains: it is purely by luck that we have this habitable planet. The minutest of changes could have ceased such occurence. Stars today continue to die and bring life to galaxies; so shall we humans, too, die and bring life to other beings.
3) Death is not as frightening as it seems. I would explain the natural process of death, but upon researching it, I found that it was not helpful in proving this point.
^ Perhaps this point is not helpful at all...
4) Death is unknowable. Humans like to overthink. They like to complicate things. On one hand, this leads to brilliant inventions. On the other hand, it presents possibilities beyond the present reality, and no less is this true in thoughts about death. People see death as more than just a natural process: they see it as a tragedy, a punishment, an end.
Get this: living people cannot comprehend death. They can know of it, perhaps the experience of it as well, but their knowledge stops there. As far as is known, life after death is the same as before birth. It is due to this unknown that people are fascinated by it, though often in an unpleasant manner.
Living creatures are in the present. They only know of the present, which is certain. This certainty is unwavering, a constant people can rely on. People cannot rely on an uncertainty like death.
Knowing that death is ultimately unknowable to the living, it can thus only be perceived. We can change our perception: instead of perceiving death as torment, we could perceive it as a release from worries, a return to planet Earth, an allowance for new life to come. Trees die in forests, and new trees subsequently emerge. If a beloved one passed, we could see it as them giving us the gift of gratitude, a gift that we will cherish as we live, gratitude for our times with them as well as for the living now.
5) Technically, we never "cease". (See the law of conservation of energy/matter as well as Time, Events & The Power of an Individual.) When we die, we do not simply cease to live. We take a different form, a corpse, and that spreads into multiple forms. (Everything in the universe is forms turning to forms.) This applies when we are alive as well. Death is not an end, but a return. You, the experiencer, will be the same as before you were born—nothing. Nothing and everything are one, the interconnection between us all.
How to cope with death: