Published 22/3/23.

The Value of Death and Life

Death is not bad. Life has value, no matter how short it is.

From this position, we say that death should be a matter of choice, to whatever extent available and desired. Additionally, a short life should not be seen as lesser than a long one. It may be sad to not be able to do as much as one wishes; but this is a fact of all kinds of life. If one is likely to have a short life, this does not mean they must avoid that. It is up to them to decide what aspects of their life they are okay with experiencing. At the same time, no matter how biologically perfect one's life is likely to be, it is up to them to decide if they want to pursue its end. This does not mean either decision needs to be made quickly; but it should be a decision.

We ought to ask ourselves what we want we are living for. Why is our reason for living just the obligation to provide society with labor? And why do we have children- is that just obligation too? Why should life not be embraced with a full heart, for whatever reason? Life, our own and the ones we create, should be an action, a movement, which means a choice. And acceptance of death cannot be divorced from this. We must stop the moral binary of life-good/death-bad; like all binaries, it is deceiving. Our ideal world should have living be an act of love, and death a mystery and a friend.

The dying should not be hidden away. Dying is not shameful. It may be uncomfortable, upsetting, confusing, and everything else; but it is life as well. The parts of life colored by deathliness are not lesser, they do not need to be disguised or ignored or silenced.

The truth is this: Estami is everything. There are no exceptions. Everything is worthy of compassionate, connective investigation. Estami is starving. Estami is the most open thing. It is pure, compassionate, connective openness. Arms eternally spread as wide as possible, an overwhelming outpour of pure-hearted curiosity about everything that could ever be; it is truly unconditional love, in that it is desire for complete knowledge through complete unity that accepts anything at all, out of true desire. So nothing which is natural- nature meaning, here, anything which is not introspective choice- can be judged. Morality can only be found through choice, and only achieved through introspective choice. Everything else cannot be "good" or "bad"; they just are. They are Estami as much as we are, and therefore to know anything is to know the self through Estami. We must accept that everything "other" is, somehow, a part of the self, or we will never know anything about the self. We are not whole without the whole. Therein lies the inherent value of everything that is: Estami hungers and desires for connection with it.

Morality is not an inherent trait of the world. Rather, it is a tool for making connective choices. What we call "morally good" is what reminds us of our connection with Estami, and "morally bad" is what clouds that memory- and this itself not a binary but a scale. Everything outside of choices simply is. So it is not that death must be universally good, or that we must universally enjoy it or its processes. Our varied and complex relationships with death are just as valuable as death itself. Death is not any more inherently good than it is inherently bad; but it is equal in value to the rest of the world. The same is true of life. The same is true of all things that end. Endings do not negate the value of whatever came before them, and just because something isn't eternal doesn't mean its existence- however brief- was worthless. If the world exists to be experienced, then experience itself makes things worthwhile. In some situations, making the experience last as long as possible may be the best course of action. But when it ends- and it will- it does not make that experience meaningless. That it existed at all, and experienced at all, is all that is needed. That is enough.