Member-only story
TW: Suicide
As a child, I was infested with thanatophobia.
Thanatophobia is the deep fear of death and the dying process. Little seven-year-old me lay awake at night, terrified of being extinguished.
I pictured my existence as a mere grain of sand on a beach with vast stretches of life bookending my short time here on Earth.
Awareness of my mortality induced an inner panic.
Are we all preoccupied with death?
And what is with our resistance to helping people die as comfortable a death as possible? Isn’t that the compassionate and kind thing to do?
Humans have found ways to cheat the aesthetics of the ageing process through cosmetic surgery. But underneath this illusion of youth, our health still erodes until there is no avoiding death.
And still, some live in denial. They harbour a fanatical hope of immortality and that they will rise again.
Sounds very biblical, but for two hundred thousand dollars, you too could be stored in liquid nitrogen and brought back to life through the advancements of cryonics.
