(a book by Rene Gude in Dutch, I don't have the Dutch in front of me, so I've loosely translated the title into Afrikaans)
Interviewer: What do you do when it is three o'clock in the morning, pitch dark, and it's raining - and you get caught up with a huge mortal fear, that big black hole into which you peer and that shouts back at you: "Yes, but soon!" What then? Rene: You have to be careful with these kinds of stories. If you conjure up a very strong representation of that death, mulling over what it would be like when you are no longer there, then you are dealing with something that has not yet occurred and that you have never experienced yourself. This is unempirical.(you cannot verify or prove anything about it scientifically.)You conjure these scenarios which evoke emotions. You are busy awakening your emotions (unnecessarily) with unreal images. It is best not to have ideas about death. If death is there, you are not, and, therefore, you cannot know anything about it.
Reminds me of Damien Hirst's title "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (the title being much more wonderful than the work itself). I find that thinking of death as either complete oblivion or a continuation of life (the latter being more appealing to me) is all I really need now to feel ready for it - or to evoke emotions that calm me - even though of course I can't imagine what either state would be like.
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