ToBeMe Quote:
<< OK.....you had some nice things to say there, but, I have to say this and I believe many will agree, unless you had some kind of "deeper" meaning, anyone whom says they do not fear death is one of three things.......Lying, fooling themselves, or dumber than the people whom flew those airliners into the WTC!
To not have fear of death is irrational and illogical! Nobody desires not to exist! If you're meaning not fearing death because of a religious belief of "afterlife"..........I don't buy into that! If that were true, why would people not be just going out looking for ways to die????? >>
Death has many faces beyond just physical death: abandonment, shame, isolation, confusion, helplessness. . . . These are all facets of death.
While I am a person of faith, I am not simply talking about an afterlife, nor do I think people should be out looking for ways to die.
What I am saying is that fear cannot be overcome unless we have something that our mind is devoted to even more than what we are afraid of. Until we value something more than our own lpersonal ife, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, we will be distraught over anything that threatens to take them away, thus diminishing our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Everybody fears death, but everybody dies. We spend our lives running from what must inevitably overtake us in the end. This "running" is what gives the terrorist the power to create anxiety that haunts even our dreams, much less our waking hours spent in public places.
Once I realize that fear is a form of death, and that death cannot be avoided, then I face my fears head on, process through them, and am thus set free to live more fully in the present moment, maximize joy in the present moment, and do what is right in the present moment (because I may not get a chance later to make it right). When I live this way, then I am content even if there is no tomorrow. This focus is what minimizes fear and deprives those who specialize in fear of their greatest weapon.
We are all going to die anyway; why cheat the time I have by allowing the terrorists to fill me with dread? If I dread, I am already embracing death.