Final Paper - The Hidden Agenda of Happiness and the Defamation of Death

t’s drastic, permanent, and, often times, a great career move. It is truly unfathomable and quite possibly boundless, yet to many it exists as the exact opposite of happiness. On any given day, most people would choose dying as the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, and the everyday fear of death must be the most consistent and continuous challenge to the pursuit of happiness. Even if we had definitive proof of a person’s admittance to their particular paradise, it would still not be very likely that they would suddenly wish to die. But why? If perfection itself cannot persuade a person away from a restrictive mortal life, then logic cannot be the only force in play. Something is causing us to ignore the obvious deal that would be exchanging the flawed for the flawless. Could it be the intrinsic joy of living that is causing this obstruction, and, if so, is happiness a byproduct of what is best for humans or is it just one of life's many ingenious ploys to help ensure its own survival?

We have an innate predisposition to life because it is all we have ever known and our familiarity with it produces an instinctive bias within all humans, indeed all living beings, that seeks to inflate the value of its own life in comparison to anything else. This is the prejudice of life. Life itself is competing to exist, and, like any other species that wishes to continue living, it must be reproductively enticing and able to defend itself. This is the nature of enduring entities on earth. The prejudice of life is not distinct to humans, but has infiltrated the human psyche and can even be observed through its meddling within our language. The subconscious efforts of life's orchestrated system of self-preservation have systematically manipulated our word “death” to encapsulate far more than its true meaning, the point of bodily failure, in order to give life a more fearsome antithesis. Death has been transformed from just a brief moment in time into an inescapable prison of empty eternity. By curtailing the perception of death to emphasis dismay or fright, and then taking up the conflicting position, life has tricked you into believing that it is the only alternative, and therefore invaluable. It is this ingrained misinterpretation that would cause most humans to answer the opposite of “life” as “death.” However death is not the opposite of life, it is the opposite of birth. This is a true universal pairing of inverse proportions, a complete contrast. They are two separate, yet connected, perfectly equal and opposing moments. Even by life’s most preferred definition of it, death would still not be comparable to life in this same manner. It is human belief that life if finite and death is eternal, but does that really make them perfect opposites? Is infinity really the perfect inverse of 60, or 30, or 2 Earth years? In fact, how exactly could anything other than infinity possibly be the exact opposite of infinity? If we take the relationship between the naturally occurring phenomenons of birth and death as a clue to a truth about our existence, then perhaps there is also a true inverse of life waiting beyond our death. This non-living or extra-living state would not be the death of our understanding. It would likely be no more terrifying than life, and possibly even more enjoyable. The inverse of worldly happiness would not be the absence of happiness all together, but some sort of transcending happiness, a happiness of the reverse kind. 

It is not a mystery why life would want to us to misinterpret “death” or make the experiences of life seem more important or delightful than those of its direct competitor. Its logical to think that the allure of life might be diminished by a true comparison of the opposite beauty of non-living, but the existence of posthumous happiness does not actually make our happiness any less valuable. If anything it should suggest that happiness is a universal feeling, and give us hope that our next state will also include pleasurable experiences. A non-living state would likely use the same sort of tactics to convince us to prolong our residencies there as well. Happiness in both cases would still be used as a ruse by reality, but this does not mean that it isn’t also what is best for us. Reality itself is not in the business of disguising one thing as another. On a long enough timeline it is capable of skewing the abstract idea of death to better suit its position, but it would not be able to intentionally camouflage harmful feelings as happiness, nor would it be in its best interest to do so. Life is truthful about itself, it just simply will not correct any falsely drawn conclusions about it or anything else. Life is still our friend even though it quietly influences us and its joys should be cherished. The lesson here is that death is not our enemy, and it is completely plausible that the truths of beyond will eclipse those of the here. 

It is my sincere belief that those who fear death can never reach the uppermost levels of happiness. Humans believe life to be invaluable and so we fear the life-for-death deal because we think are getting the short end. And while it is true that life-for-death is a bad deal, it is only because the two are not exchangeable. Life has an exact value, and we get every penny's worth when swap it for the non-living. This is the true nature of the trade. Death does not conquer life anymore than birth conquers death. They are merely transitions between a living and non-living state. All is balanced and the existence of one does not dim the joys of the other, but rather reaffirms them. Consequently, we should not mourn the death of a human, but rather celebrate it. Not just in the cliché way of, “celebrating their life,” but actually rejoice in their passage. Their transition should be enviable, for they have received a fair barter, had their questions answered, and may now explore the wonder with renewed senses.