书中提到伊比鳩魯关于死的观点，认为人死了，灵魂也一同带走，所以，死的不可怕在于死的不可感知性，生死的对立和不相容性，我活着，死亡不在；死了，我已不在。(where I am, death is not; where death is, I am not.) 生和死不能共存，人死的时候，并不知道自己死了，故有什么好害怕的呢。
One day, my daughter, at the age of 6 or 7, pulled the Children’s Bible off her shelf, turned to the page where there was a picture of shining gold-adorned palace, and asked me in tears if it’s true that this would be place where people reside in their death. I remember that I replied something like wasn’t it wonderful to live our afterlife in such a beautiful palace? This did not quell her at all. She burst into crying harder no matter what I said. I did not know what she was taught at the church, and what made her so scared? She did not know how to express herself, but tears were streaming down constantly whenever this topic came up. This continued for a while until I stopped sending her to the church completely.
We never talked about it ever since, but it remained a question in my mind what roiled her little mind when death was so far away? What made her believe that however magnificent the heaven looks like, it is a dreadful place?
Almost everyone in this world is afraid of death, young or old, to a certain level. However advanced today’s technology is, death still remains a mystery. No living people will tell us what death feels like, or if there is really an afterlife, revival, undying soul or heavens. Death is imperceptible, unknown and out of our hand. From the moment we were born, we are traversing on the passage from infancy to adulthood, and from maturity to ultimate death. However strong the yearning for an eternal life, life is finite, and death is inevitable. We are like the speck of dust that will one day return to the world in ashes, holding on to nothing and taking nothing with us the moment we are buried.
Poignant the fact is, it reminds us to” live more in each moment”, to consummate our life and fulfill our potential, so that little regrets are left behind when our time is running out. This is the highlight of the book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, written by Dr, Yalom, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University, a book I borrowed from the library and finished it less than two weeks.
In the book, I surprisingly found a poem I learnt and recited at the middle school in China:
Good better best
Never let it rest
Until good is better
And better is best
From youth, we were educated to live positively and meaningfully, pursuing the dreams in our life. However, the older we get, the more we know, the more diminished we are at attaining the goal. Sometimes we are easily baffled with the meaning of living. Then when we are aging and deteriorating, we are inclined to be reminiscent of the old golden days, wishing to re-live life from the start. But our hourglass can never be reversed; neither can the clock be rewound. With more than half of our life gone by, we are no longer privileged to lament over the unfulfilled dreams, but to live every moment to its maximum.
回复 '7grizzly' 的评论 : You are absolutely right that if we set a high unattainable goal, like living every moment to its maximum, we won't achieve it and thus won't be happy. So let's do our best to stay healthy, and leave everything else to God:)). Thanks, my friend, for reminding me.
It's a heavy and great topic and I'm speaking out of my readings these days. My ideas might change in the future but I doubt it ;-)
> With more than half of our life gone by, we are no longer privileged to lament over the unfulfilled dreams,
I wish I learnt that truth before reaching mid-life.
> but to live every moment to its maximum.
Be careful here. Chasing fulfillment itself might be the root cause why we are unhappy.
回复 '思韵如蓝' 的评论 : 思韵妹妹好！一直在想，他的书名为什么叫Staring at the Sun?作者在后记里说了，直面死亡跟直视太阳一样的让人不舒服，不建议直视太阳，但要鼓励自己直面人生直面死亡。这书文字好，也就300页不到，字体大大的，值得一读。还有一点，从这本书可以看出，美国人看心理医生的人还是挺多的,有人可以一看30年。祝思韵妹妹周末轻松，让我们都健康快乐地生活着！
