Epicurus said: “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” Death, as a state, essentially means the passing of life and the time that follows. Mere ending does not harm a person. The reason death is frightening lies in the tricks of human imagination.

From what I have observed, there are three main reasons why humans fear death:

First, pain. This is easy to understand. Pain evolved as a reminder of the body’s condition. Death is the worst state the body can reach, so approaching death often brings unbearable suffering. Yet pain can be avoided. To avoid being blocked, I will not expand on this point here.

Second, the influence of ingrained ideas, expressed as regret. When facing death, people often think: I have not yet done certain things; I cannot let go of someone; I care about how others will judge me. But everyone must die. Not only is there nothing one can manage after death, even in life one cannot have everything as desired. To understand impermanence is to understand that regret is inevitable. Accepting impermanence removes this source of fear.

Third, the fabricated “afterlife” of religion. People fear going to hell. The afterlife is an extremely effective tool of socialization and power. To make people fear death is to make them love life. Further, reincarnation explains the shortcomings of this life and compels people to live cautiously, accumulating merit to secure a better next life. In this way, dissatisfaction is reduced and social stability maintained. In my view, reincarnation is the most cruel idea in human cultural history, with the afterlife close behind. Both prevent people from becoming themselves, wasting their only life within dogma.

Suppose humans could live forever—would death then cease to be feared? No. This is the same mistake as the claim that death gives life meaning. Both commit an error regarding time. Neither depends on death itself. The first grants humans endless time to experience everything without end, removing the urgency that death brings. The second treats death as a deadline, thus giving life “meaning.” Wrong. It merely makes people aware of limited time, motivating them to attempt what they otherwise would not. But that can still be meaningless. Meaning must always be created by humans.

I believe the latter is more worth learning from. At least it honestly faces the fact of life’s finitude and encourages people to do what they wish. The former is nothing more than the ultimate fantasy of those clinging to life or power, teaching people to live timidly, never daring to realize their desires, always waiting for “next time.” They become machines of endless experience, stripped of human selfhood, reduced to walking corpses.

My personal view of death is as follows:

Death belongs only to the individual’s subjective experience. No matter one’s identity, no one can experience another’s death.

Life gives death its meaning. We must first exist to experience anything; thus death, as the end of all experience, naturally carries fear.

To evade death only invites greater disaster. One should face death and accept it. Death is not reasonable, nor unjust. It is simply the end when time has run its course.

Finally, I leave you with Nietzsche’s words: “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once”