View at Medium.com

My most recent Medium story begins:

“Inevitable to life is death and not inevitable to death is life.”

— Jamaica Kincaid

Is Kincaid right? Is death inevitable for those stamped with the gift of life?

For don’t we hold these truths about the human condition to be self-evident: that each of us is a human being; that each human being was born and shall die; that time in general and that each person’s time on this planet in particular is finite in nature; that most probably when the body perishes so too does consciousness; and that most probably there is nothing more to this sentient, intelligent life after the perishing of this body and the final darkening of this consciousness? We are enclosed by these truths, it seems.

Because of these apparently self-evident truths about the human condition, my death can hardly be anything but shockingly scary to me. Unless, that is, I seek consolation by some intellectual means or another.

You can read the rest of the story here.