(no subject)

[kyanited]

Life holds nothing terrible for the one who has made it plain to himself that there is nothing terrible in not-living. Thus, whoever says he fears death, not because it will bring pain but because it comes some day, is talking into the blue. For what when it comes does not bother us, because we are dead, cannot bring us pain; we can only imagine it while we wait. So the alleged most eerie evil, death, is without meaning to us, because as long as we're here death is not, and as soon as death arrives we're gone.

So death has no meaning for either the living or the dead; to one it does not apply and to the other it does not exist.

The majority, though, dread death as the worst of all evils; others regard it as a repose from life's struggles. Whereas the wise neither reject life nor fear not-living. For neither does life displease him nor does he consider not living to be something bad.

[ Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) ]

What I fear, what I always feared, is and was physical pain, and especially not knowing if and when the pain ends or I stop being aware of it.