Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.60

He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation, or a different kind of sensation.

But if you shall have no sensation, neither will you feel any harm; and if you shall acquire another kind of sensation, you will be a different kind of living being, and you will not cease to live.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8 (tr Long)

Good grief, I do hate it when perfectly sound reasoning gets in the way of my perfectly good moping.

If I am afraid of death because it will be the end, I literally have nothing to fear. If I am afraid of death because it will be something else, then it isn’t really death I’m afraid of at all, just something different.

That is why Socrates suggested that we are only afraid of death because we are afraid of what is unknown to us. If death means that my consciousness will cease, then I can see that as a relief from suffering and worry, a well-earned respite from the burdens of life. If death means going on to some other state of existence, then I can see that as a wonderful opportunity.

I will admit, however, that I have worried about how death may indeed be some sort of transformation, but perhaps a terrible transformation into something far worse, something more painful than I can imagine, something irredeemable. See, all that talk about fire and brimstone gets me into some troubling thoughts.

But this is one of those places where Stoicism is of such great comfort to me, because I can know that no evil will ever befall me that I have not myself invited into my life. I know this not simply out of some article of faith, or out of some desperate hope, but from two of the most basic facts about life.

First, as unclear as it may at times seem, I know that Providence will always act for the sake of what is good. Whatever will happen, will happen for a reason, and that reason is always subject to the purpose of the whole. There can be nothing bad in anything being what it was made to be.

Second, as frustrating as it may at times seem, I know that what is good for me, as a creature of reason and choice, proceeds entirely from my own judgment and action. Whatever may occur, however strange or powerful the conditions, will always exist for me as an occasion to live with character.

That is my happiness, that is my joy, and it can never be taken from me. Providence has made me, and the world I live in, to be that way. Bad things won’t happen to me, because nothing that “happens” is actually bad in and of itself, and everything that “happens” can be ordered to good

This may seem odd or ridiculous to some, but only to those who continue to measure the value of life by the circumstances, and not by what is done with the circumstances.

My Black Dog would like to distract me, by telling me that this hurts too much, or that will never get better, or how I no longer have the power to rule myself. But the Black Dog lies, and his power is only in doubt and confusion.

Socrates expresses all of this beautifully in the Apology:

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.  He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. 

Written in 6/2008