When I was a kid, I had this absurd belief that as I grew older, my parents were somehow growing younger.

That one day, we’d switch places me becoming the caretaker, them becoming the children repeating the cycle in an infinite loop. Then college hit me with the reality of death, and my entire framework for understanding life collapsed.

‍

How do you even process something like that?

I don’t fear death. I don’t expect to avoid it. I don’t even try to prolong it. But what I can’t grasp is my inability to understand it. Whether you’re religious or not, the same two possibilities exist:

‍

You stop existing. No thoughts, no consciousness just an eternal, empty void.

You exist forever. In some form or another, infinitely conscious, with no escape.

‍

Neither of these is comprehensible. How do you STOP thinking? How do you cease? Conversely, how do you exist for eternity? If the afterlife exists, imagine being in heaven for a trillion years and realizing you’re just getting started.

‍

Nietzsche once framed this dilemma in his concept of eternal recurrence:

“What if a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon? Or would you answer him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’”

‍

The idea is simple: If you had to live this exact life, on repeat, forever, would you be thrilled or horrified?

‍

Overcoming the Need for Purpose

A man is never truly free until he releases his need for purpose.

I see it in the comments here all the time:

‍

“What do we do with all this knowledge?”

“What’s the end goal?”

“How do we apply this understanding of life?”

‍

It’s the same pattern across everything:

‍

You learn game, and ask: “What’s the final objective here?”

You start working out, and ask: “What’s my long-term goal?”

You start dating a girl, and ask: “Where is this going?”

You watch a movie, and ask: “How does it end?”

You follow a TV show, and ask: “What happens next?”

‍

We externalize purpose in everything we do, believing there must be some final destination some ultimate answer at the end of the road. But there isn’t.

There’s no universal truth waiting for you. No secret final boss to defeat. No great revelation that will make everything click into place.

‍

You work out, but when you get old, your muscles wither.

You master game, but eventually, you settle or fade.

You build an empire, but one day, the empire dies with you.

‍

This isn’t something to fear it’s something to embrace. A man owned by his fear of death is already dead.

“Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.”  Napoleon

‍

Transcending the Fear of Death

So what do you do? How do you escape the eschatological prison of knowing everything is temporary?

You do exactly what warriors have done for millennia, you stare death in the face and keep moving forward. You embrace your mortality not as a weakness, but as your ultimate freedom. You stop fearing the void and start using it as fuel.

‍

Death isn’t your enemy. It’s your deadline.

‍

You have one shot at this. No replays. No second tries. The clock is running down, and the final buzzer is coming.

‍

So the question isn’t “How do I avoid death?”

‍

It’s “How do I make damn sure I’ve lived before it gets here?”

‍

Welcome to UnfilteredMan

‍