Fear of death

It's 3.20am. I've just bolted upright in my own bed with that paralysing fear of death that grips us sometimes. You know the one - realising that you're going to die and that all of this means nothing, because one day your consciousness won't even exist and all your thoughts and hopes and dreams will never be known by anyone else ever. 

I just sat up and said, "Oh God Oh God Oh God OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!"

And all of this shit means nothing. Who will care in 100 year's time whether I did or did not get my PhD? Whether I did or did not fall in love? Whether I did it or did not fulfil my artistic ambitions?

Sometimes we get stuck on the treadmill, unaware of our own relative unimportance. The ego consumes us and we forget we're just one of billions trapped in the cycle of life.

Fear of death is something that I first really got to grips with when I was 15. At least then I had this hope, and a vast amount of time ahead of me. At 30, the course feels more set.

I hope one day I can face my death with peace and resolve. My mother says that a fear of death is good - it means there's still something left to live for. I hope she's right...