On death and dying

Not just a clever title.

Everyone needs to deal with mortality in their own way and find meaning where they can. That said, I don't understand why/how people try to find meaning in death. There are times where a death can have substance and impact (say, where some glitch in some system leads to someone's avoidable and untimely demise, and that tragedy may prevent a future death). But the notion of "God was calling them home" or "it was their time to go" or "there must be some reason for this that we can't understand" does nothing for me. Most deaths just happen. To search for meaning in that circumstance misses the point. Life isn't in the dying, it is in the living. There is no cosmic meaning when someone's car stalls on train tracks and they get smashed. There's no mystical explanation why the tsunami in 2004 killed hundreds of thousands of people. What greater purpose is served by some baby being tossed in a dumpster? Rarely is there good to be found in death. There are reasons things happen. There are reasons that people die when they do. But more often than not, there is no great meaning to be found there. Meaning is found in the life lived, not the death endured. Death can be unfortunate and upsetting, it need not be noble or cosmically important to give someone's life meaning. Celebrate life lived and mourn for life unlived, but leave death alone.

-Grim Poster