In the last couple of days, I was dreadfully ill. Apparently an intense stomach virus. I filled up the toilet bowl with projectile vomiting, etc. Anyway this led me to think that I might be dying, or rather to meditate on what it would be like if I were actually dying. I had a chance to see how I felt about that.

It seemed to me pleasant, just irresponsibly so. Like knowing you were going to fall into a deep, satisfying sleep and looking forward to it. Relief from all one's cares and woes ("slings and arrows of outrageous fortune").

As a teenager and before, I used to meditate with a kind of horror on the absence of my existence (the No of Me) that would be my status or non-status after being dead. There was something awful, unspeakable, about my no longer being, the total end of consciousness and existence of moi (leaving aside theories of heaven, reincarnation, soul, inextinguishable energy, past and future lives, and the like). Now it's more like: what's the problem?

Generally speaking, there are two problems that I see about dying, one trivial and one more important. There is also a third possible problem that might affect certain others but doesn't affect me much. The trivial matter is the pain and suffering that is likely to accompany the process of dying. This is trivial for two reasons: one, in modern medicine (we hope) pain will be well managed, and two, the pain and suffering of dying will make one happier to die. The important matter is that one is leaving all one's unresolved problems and obligations to society (in my case, debts, for instance) and just piles of stuff to others, to one's dear ones in fact. That is obnoxious and unfair to do. In other words, while the departure from one's own woes may be experienced as a "consummation devoutly to be wished" and a pure relief, it is at the same time a passing off of one's woes to others. To pass that load of displeasure and discomfort, largely of one's own making, on to others who have their own problems to deal with, seems selfish and inconsiderate, to say the least.

The third problem that I can see, but not so much one for me, is the problem of "unfinished business." I can well understand that someone may have a lifelong project, let's say, that they are hanging on to complete, whether realistically or not (if only to get back at one's enemies). For me there is no such thing in any concrete sense, so that is not a problem.