The only certainty in life

We humans crave certainty and coherence. Anything unknown to us is unnerving to different degrees, sometimes consciously and often unconsciously. We cannot know anything about the future. The present could at any moment change in unforeseen ways to an unimaginable extent but death is always guaranteed. That is the only certainty in life. Still, we do not embrace it, do not dare to accept it. One reason for that is: while death is irrevocably sure to happen to us, there is no certitude about what it entails. We don’t know how we will perceive it or if there is something after it. That is why the topic of death is so often evaded.

Death means leaving behind all of what we have and who we are. The (sometimes positive, sometimes negative) greed at the core of human nature hinders us from simply letting things pass. It is frightening to face the reality of letting everything we have built in our lives just pass forever. With varying success, some try to overcome this natural tendency for attachment. I do not advocate for that because this greed, this drive to achieve and impress and enjoy and be prideful, is not merely a catalyst for subjective suffering. Discontentment can make you strive for more. This part of human nature doesn’t only result in parasitism or opportunism. It is also the impetus leading to most people contributing something to humanity as a whole, independent from it having originated in egoistic or altruistic intentions. [The egoistic aspects of altruism and the altruistic aspects of egoism are topics in and of themselves.]  For now, it only matters that humans have a drive to create value. A value we want to retain. How could we have evolved this far if this wasn’t the case? Holding on to our acquired resources is linked with our instinct to live, which makes it emotionally difficult for us to accept the inevitable truth of our own mortality and loss. The puzzle piece to being less afraid of letting go of our own existence lies in being less habitually attached to our material circumstances.

There are only two types of material possessions. On the one hand, those for basic survival – food, water, shelter – and the tools we require to acquire them. On the other hand, there are objects whose sole purpose is to create feelings in us. Feelings of status, of amusement, of beauty, joy, calm. This second category is what I mean with material circumstances we are habituated to. We don’t fear missing these goods, but want to hold on to the way we feel. That immaterial existence which is known only to ourselves is our most precious.

We are a species of habits. Change is something that does not come easy to most. A radical transformation seems dangerous to us because our adaptability allows only for incremental modifications to be safely controllable, and undergoing that switch from alive to dead is one that’s impossible to adapt to, if there even is something to adapt to. It is the total lack of control that we do not like to see ourselves confronted with. There is no preparation and no knowledge about what we will experience, and worst of all, everything that we enjoy, which we have spent effort to acquire for the duration of our whole life, will be gone.

Death is the biggest shift in immaterial experience a person will go through. Even more so than birth. A newborn gradually develops awareness of itself and habituation to the world. Death is sudden.

To counteract the terror that comes with that uncertainty, different cultures have come up with different stories about what happens to us after living. Some say our soul will stay in the cycle of life, getting reborn in a new body, maybe in that of a human or of another living organism. Others claim your consciousness will reside in either a place of eternal torture or of infinite bliss and abundance. A few theorize that you run a chance of wandering the planet as a disembodied entity. Or there is nothing.

You might or might not convince yourself of any of the above. Trying to wrap your head around this mystery that awaits you is good, in any way shape or form. Anthropologists and sociologists have realized that cultures that have an emphasis of calling awareness to the end of each life are among the happiest. The ancient stoics alluded to the many benefits of being conscious of the scarcity of life by giving death attention. This is not advice but a pointer to the seeming upside to not veil this important aspect of life that is the only certainty we ever have.

Confronting anything we fear can bolster our minds against it. The more we get into a position of power against what is haunting us inside by deliberately apprehending it in action or contemplation, the less powerful this angst becomes. Picking either of the theories above might make that process easier. Convincing yourself of an unknowable scenario that is going to happen after death, be it anything or nothing, will make it seem a little less uncertain and therefore a little less scary. Not everybody is capable of juggling multiple diverging potential outcomes in their head or simply letting reality happen as it will regardless of the outcome.

Having chosen a conviction of what one wants to believe will happen after their life ends, will potentially provide some relief from the existential burden of inconclusiveness about death. But it should not cloud one’s judgement regarding the fact that it is absolutely ensured that there will come this point of a tremendous shift in circumstance. That is what I proclaim to be important as it is the only certainty in life. Let us remind ourselves of the calm we derive from certainty.

That particular insurance of life having an end has a purpose and creates value out of something we might revert to taking for granted. The gratitude for being not yet dead can make each moment a celebration. Each day we awake before that inevitable finish line can be a reverse birthday but much more meaningful.

The finiteness of existence does not only serve the purpose of keeping lifeforms adaptable that otherwise would simply settle for the habits previously functional for survival. To us as a species so driven by value, death makes life precious. The scarcer a good, the higher we price it. Since death makes it finite, life is invaluable.

A huge !Thank You! to Ivan(Vanya Bagaev) and Trilety Wade for helping me edit this piece. Check out their excellent Substacks.