"I Don't So Much Fear Death As I Want to Avoid It"

One trendy thing among anti-vaxxers/maskers/social distancers, from the New Age and far right, is to prattle on about how terrible it is to "live in fear" and even how "unenlightened" or "unmanly" it is (depending on the background of the accuser) to "fear death." I agree that it is crappy to live in fear. However, it's not so crappy to live and experience fear at select moments, when your life or well-being may be threatened. The fear response and its associated hormones evolved in Earth creatures millions of years ago for the most practical of reasons: the persistence of the individual and the species. I'll take it.

What about the "unenlightened" or "unmanly" posture of fearing death, specifically? Fearing death is a personal, internal cluster of feelings that I don't feel compelled to level a value judgment upon. Nobody knows with certainty what occurs once consciousness (at least as it is localized in your present Earth body) is extinguished, so it is understandable that people may experience fear at the thought of it. Myself, personally, I don't so much fear death as I want to avoid it.

I don't fear it, precisely, because it's certainly possible that whatever happens after one's own personal lights go out is less stupid and more forgiving than a lot of the shit transpiring presently on the Earthly plane. I want to avoid it because my lust for life is enormous. Generally speaking, I love life, both the biological force pulsing always on this planet and my own personal opportunity to be part of it. I'm grateful to have passion for life - the sensual, the poetic, the musical, the cosmological, the theatrical and for wild nature. I want it all to persist.