Of life, death and legacy as coping mechanism

With our birth begins an inexorable journey towards death. It comes sooner or later. The lucky ones die naturally (read old age or from old age disease), the unlucky ones die prematurely or unnaturally- accident, disaster, homicide, riots, some kind of violence, and so on.

So what is then about living? Even the most avowedly pious and faithful are doubtful about an existence after death, or the existence of heaven or hell. Well, by all means and everyday action (which we sometimes call greed, possessiveness or envy or hatred or meanness), they prove that they are as suspicious about an afterlife as an atheist or an agnostic, though they would never, ever or mostly acknowledge it. Perhaps the obsession to leave a bloodline is a coping mechanism to fight the inevitability of death amid all our lifelong material pursuits. 

To know that there is just nothing after you die, is scary, very, very scary, demoralising and depressing. Those who unquestionably believe in life after death, like they believe in god, are fortunate. To me such people are mythical, but perhaps they are there, and I have just not met them.

With all these thoughts come the question- then how are we supposed to live our lives? What is life? What is love? What is family? What is friendship? What is religion? Or are these institutions mere creations of an intelligent animal to cope with the emptiness, ennui, meaninglessness and futility of life as an intelligent animal?

With all these thoughts crowding my mind, also comes an answer to keep me calm: we can only prolong our lives through our work, our actions, and our way of living that impacts or influences the world even after we leave this world. Perhaps that is what we call immortality in a logical sense. Thus we can ask, am I leaving behind any legacy to emulate or follow or continue or admire? Is my legacy my real heir?

So is it only the life of a scientist, who found an answer to a rare disease or invented aeroplane or built a great machine, matter? Or does it extend to the lives of artists, actors, singers, and writers and for that matter any creative soul?

Well, this is not so simple, there is no simplification of these existential questions- How do we live? What do we care for? Who and how many people should we care for? What is selfishness? What is selflessness? What is hedonism? How far can we go for lust? What is loyalty? And yes, what is love and how to love and how important is it to get love.

But as we cope with life to find these answers, what bugs us constantly is that if we all die and perish and never find an answer to the enigma of an afterlife, then does anything in life at all matter? Do we then really need to be nice to others to be remembered as quote-unquote nice souls? Or are we just okay to be bad or unkind to others? Do we really have a reason to care for the achievements of some?

So all these questions about life, death and ideal life and living bug me, roil me, sometimes even torment me. And then I tell myself: just try to leave behind a legacy, a legacy with footprints of a life lived unapologetically in a way that it helps others to find courage to live their lives their way.

And if that legacy of yours just survives another life span it is enough. Because someone inspired by your life, courage and honest pursuit of happiness will leave behind another legacy of a life lived courageously, unapologetically and unambiguously, despite all the challenges that life throws at us everyday.

Am I echoing Nietzsche's idea of "the overman"? Perhaps partly.