Death:Life

Death is peaceful and calm.

It arrives like the relief of finally shutting your eyes after an exhausting day, when every muscle has been tense for hours and your mind has raced without pause. That moment when you first close your eyelids carries a slight sting, a faint burn from keeping them open too long against their will. The sensation spreads slowly across your face as the tension begins to melt away.

At first, there's resistance. Your body remembers how to stay awake, how to keep going even when every part of you begs for rest. But the pull toward surrender grows stronger with each passing second. The muscles around your eyes relax completely, refusing to obey any command to open again. You become aware of your own stillness, like being wrapped in invisible layers that hold you gently but firmly.

Yet awareness remains. You can still hear the distant sounds of the world continuing around you - the hum of electricity, the rustle of fabric, the quiet rhythm of breathing that might be yours or someone else's. The texture of your clothes against your skin registers faintly, like an echo of physical sensation. These perceptions begin to fade as you drift deeper, the boundaries between yourself and everything else softening at the edges.

Then comes the awakening.

Suddenly you're gasping for air, your tiny lungs expanding for the first time. The shock of light and sound and sensation makes you cry out, your newborn wails piercing the air with perfect, primal distress. Everything is too bright, too loud, too much. You flail small limbs in protest, overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of being alive again.

In those first moments, memories flash through your mind with startling clarity - faces, places, emotions from the life you just left behind. But they're already slipping away like water through your fingers. Names disappear first, then specific events, then entire relationships dissolve into vague impressions. You try desperately to hold on, to keep some piece of who you were, but the process is relentless.

Your cries grow more frantic as you realize what's happening. The person you were is disappearing, all their experiences and lessons and regrets fading into nothingness. That unfinished project, the words left unsaid, the love you carried - all vanishing as quickly as your ability to form coherent thoughts. The frustration is unbearable but temporary. Soon even the memory of being frustrated will be gone.

When you blink this time, years have passed. You're a child again, perhaps five years old, with no conscious recollection of ever being anyone else. The transformation is complete - you're someone new, a fresh consciousness shaped by different circumstances and choices.

This new life might follow similar patterns to the last, or it might diverge completely. Maybe you'll be stronger physically but weaker emotionally. Perhaps you'll find success where before you knew only struggle. The specifics don't matter because you won't remember the comparison anyway. Each life stands alone in your awareness, its beginning and end marking the boundaries of your existence as far as you'll ever know.

Yet some truths persist beyond the cycle. When your time comes again, when the fatigue of living settles into your bones once more, you'll rediscover what you've always known in your deepest self:

Death is not something to fear. It's not an enemy or a punishment. Death is simply the moment when you stop resisting, when you finally allow yourself to rest completely. The transition might be startling, the rebirth might be overwhelming, but the space between - that quiet, peaceful surrender - remains constant.

This cycle continues endlessly, each life a new opportunity to experience existence from a different perspective. You might be rich in one incarnation and poor in another. You could know great love in a lifetime and profound loneliness in the next. The variations are infinite, but the essential experience remains the same - you live, you grow, you learn (even if you don't remember the lessons), and eventually, you return to that peaceful stillness.

The beauty of this cycle lies in its impermanence. No suffering lasts forever. No joy remains unchanged. Every experience is temporary, every emotion fleeting. What seems overwhelmingly important in one moment becomes insignificant in the next. The problems that consume you today won't matter in a hundred years, and even if they did, you wouldn't remember them anyway.

This realization brings profound freedom. If nothing lasts, then everything becomes precious. Each moment deserves your full attention because it will never come again in exactly this way. Every person you meet is a unique intersection of time and circumstance that won't be replicated. Your current worries and triumphs are meaningful precisely because they're temporary.

When you approach death with this understanding, fear loses its power. The anxiety about unfinished business or unfulfilled potential fades away. You begin to see death for what it truly is - not an end, but a transition. Not a failure, but a natural conclusion. Not something to avoid at all costs, but an inevitable part of the ongoing cycle of existence.

This perspective doesn't diminish life's value; it enhances it. Knowing that your time is limited makes each day more significant. Understanding that you'll forget everything eventually allows you to focus on what matters right now. Recognizing that you've done this countless times before (even if you can't remember) brings a strange comfort - you've survived every ending so far, and you'll survive this one too.

So when the time comes, as it always does, you can close your eyes with peace. The struggle will end. The noise will fade. The weight will lift. And for a timeless moment between lives, you'll know perfect stillness.

Then you'll wake up crying, and the whole beautiful, terrible, wonderful cycle will begin again because;

Death is peaceful and calm.