Death and Senescence
Deteriorating health, vigor and vitality (senescence) culminating in death is common among life forms. But, so what! Validation does not derive from frequency. The entire human race could stop smiling and never smile again, but that would not prove that people cannot smile. Everyone could be insane making insanity normal. How easy it is to make mistakes and compound them by deriving false data from them. Everyone you know and everyone you ever learn about could wrong. When we add the number of people we know to the number we hear or read about, we get a number that is such a small percentage of the population we will not be qualified to draw conclusions that apply to everyone. If we also consider everyone who has ever lived, we easily see that things we think of everyone are not proven by seeing it in others with our own eyes or by experiencing it ourselves. Senescence and death might be the result of human errors.
Humans must have wondered about death since they have been able to think, and it is still a mystery to many people. There are some who claim to know all about it, and the things they claim to know often conflict. The idea that senescence and death are inevitable and unavoidable may be the most popular opinion, but it is not the only one. It is not difficult to find information provided by people who do not think deteriorating health that resolves in death. It is time to bring the issue to the forefront.
Death is important. Senescence is, too. Soon after being born, humans experience both in others. They then experience it themselves. This has caused a lot of absolute conviction about various concepts regarding death and senescence. The people could be grouped according to their thoughts and beliefs regarding old age and death, but there is a concept that nearly everyone shares. Nearly everyone!
The belief that everyone dies is all I have been able to detect in direct contact with people. I hear peoples say, “Everyone dies.” They speak with conviction and will not brook any descent. Yet, I suspect that they don’t know everyone and an even deeper notion that they don’t know everyone who has ever lived. Therefore, they don’t know that everyone died. They just think they do and they think what they think is correct. There are countless examples of such thinking that have proven the incorrect. It has resulted in suffering and death far too often. It even inflicts suffering and death. What people accept as proof is terrifying. What they do because they have accepted something is a terrible stain in human history.
It is clear that the people who believe that everyone dies have not done much research regarding the topic. If they had, they would have found the multitude of written material that should mitigate their conviction. There are many books and reports about people who ascended. There are many about people who lived for centuries. The Bible sites numerous examples, but it is not the only writing that reports such things. A visit to a New Age-type book store will expose the most convinced person in the world to writings that contradict their beliefs. Still, the people cling to death as inevitable as if it is a natural law that cannot be violated. That is very strange. Even if senescence and death have never been avoided by anyone, it does not prove that it can’t be done.
Seeing something happen a lot is not proof that it must and will happen. If everyone a person knows dies, it only means that everyone that person knows died. Conclusions drawn from experience have been proven to be incorrect far too often to keep doing it. Examples are plentiful. It has been said that insanity is expecting different result from the same action. Now it is being said here that repeating the same mistake is insanity. Believing one’s opinion just because everyone does something is worse than insanity. It is reveling in ignorance and error.
A human can believe something so strongly it could cause that something to happen. Yet, the convictions about senescence and death seem to be getting exempted as causal. Living a long life with the conviction that the human body is going to deteriorate and die might be the one thing that causes both. Being convinced that there is no way to completely prevent accidental death must be added to this. Suggesting this to strangers results in near identical reactions by those receiving the suggestion. Doing so with friends and family vary the reactions a little, but only a little. It appears to be one of the most popular and strongly held beliefs there is.
The certainty of death might be a mistake, a myth, a “self-fulling prophesy.” There is a widespread report of a man from India who is known as the “deathless guru.” For all we know there are people among us who have been here for thousands of years. There in little possibility that there is anyone who knows everyone and knows their history. Hiding one’s age is common. It would behoove an ancient human to keep its age secret for obvious reasons. The tendency of people to reject the possibility of ancient humans is telling.
I have listened to people tell me about things unbelievable that they say are true. Alien encounters jumps to mind, which may or may not be true, but the person who says they are sure it is true would likely balk at the suggestion that they don’t have to get decrepit and die. People often present their belief that we create our own reality. They should create a reality in which they do not decay with age and die while their loved ones and everyone else does the same. These same people usually profess that they don’t like getting feeble and dying, and that they dislike even more their loved ones doing it, yet they are sure it is inevitable and think we all create our own reality. This does not compute.
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” It is a far, far better thing to do than to accede to death and take its path. The strongly held conviction that death is inevitable could stand some raging. Try to survive! I have to beg you to try to survive! As you fall off all around me, I grieve, and I rage against the willful acquiescence to death you show me. I fight against your leaving me.
I have found enough reasons to think it is possible try to stay youthful and never die. You don’t have to trust me, but you have nothing to lose but death and senescence. I think it is very likely that death is the result of errors. Caring for the body is important and the truth regarding the best way to do it is not easy to acquire. Then there are other factors involved. Attitude is important. It is likely that past-lives bears on the quality of this life. A lot of things come into the formula for eternal youth. It is probably not a fountain. I don’t know if it is or not. I just doubt it. But if you are already convinced and willfully cling to the certainty of senescence and death, you are at least more likely to go that way than if you were not so convicted.