OyChicago blog

I am probably going to die of a heart attack. Or not. I don’t know. I’ll probably have to wait until to find out. Most likely, my hypochondria is going to be the end of me. It may even cause that heart attack. I let my hypochondria run rampant so much that any time I feel anything out of the ordinary, I think “Hmmm, how’s this going to kill me?” Although, if I’m right even once, I win. Like the paranoid guy I follow home every night, we just need that one time to be justified.

Where my hypochondria apparently stems from is I always feel like I have chest pains. There are always little tingles and feelings of pressure that I don’t understand until I stop giving myself tickle massages. But after that, I do often wonder at what point of discomfort I would actually say to the person next to me, “Ahem. I do believe I am currently experiencing the sensation of cardiac arrest. If it would not trouble you in the least to fetch some assistance, I would be most gracious for the prevention of my demise.”

That’s really what hypochondria leads to. A fear of death. A fear of the unknown. Therefore, it’s difficult to say exactly what I believe about life after death. I don’t so much have a belief as much as a want. To sum it up in a sentence, I expect the worst and hope for the best. Like every time I visit my mother. Just kidding. Love ya Mom! However, I do like to say that I don’t care what happens as long as there’s consciousness after death. If I made that into a wish, I’d be sure to make that a little more specific otherwise there might be some bad catches and consequences to that consciousness. I don’t want to end up in the mind of a stick. That’d be quite a sticky situation. (Can’t believe I just wrote that.)

When I was in college, I went through a period of time where I had, what I liked to call, mortality issues. When I thought about my metabolic processes being history, I would get these waves of distress and foreboding over me that was uncontrollable. Strangely enough, I would never say that I got depressed. I was too preoccupied that this whole death thing applied to me too. (Joke lovingly taken from Steve Martin) The idea of infinite nothingness, albeit a thought when I’m conscious, is genuinely freaky. Coming to the realization that in this “worst case scenario” I wouldn’t, in fact, be conscious, had a surprisingly sobering effect. Thus came the next stage of my receptivity towards mortality.

I accepted death, I suppose. Of course I say that at 24 years old and in good health. Maybe wait until I’m about to die to see how I truly feel. However, death, as it turns out, is the number one killer of man. 100% fatal. More so than bizarre vicious grandma attacks. What I really accepted more was that without death, life loses its purpose. Getting limited time can force you do something great with your life. It gives you urgency. Personally, I know I want to leave some sort of legacy, even if in the most minute way. Hence I’m writing this and anything that potentially could and should survive beyond my lifetime. When it comes down to it, I need the whole ceasing to exist thing because I’m possibly more scared with the idea of living forever. My mind has difficulty comprehending something that isn’t finite. Everything must have a beginning, middle and end. For example, this sentence would be tough to comprehend without-

If it isn’t entirely apparent, I might be a little obsessed with death, but at least for, what I feel, are all the right reasons. Hence, again, I love to write. I face death head on because if I face it butt on I’ll probably get prostate cancer, as it runs in my family. I do half expect to get it. Or one out of six expect to get it. If I did end up getting cancer, it’d have to be colon cancer. I’m already prepared should the situation arise. See, I know I’ll be able to beat it (gotta have the optimism). And although they may have to remove a part of my colon, that’ll be just fine. Being that I have a degree in English, I’d have even more smugness in being able to say I’m one of the few people that knows how to properly use a semi-colon. Bah-dum chee! Not to mention that I would be able to refer to it as “butt cancer”. It just sounds softer, you know?

We all have to die someday. Morbid and blunt, I know. But it’s one of the universal truths out there. Accepting it and dealing with it is one way to conquer death. Discovering the Fountain of Youth is the other. Knowing that, I do what I can with the time I got. It’d be nice to actively pursue the philosophy of doing what I want every second of every day, but alas, we live in a world where cash is very important. In case you didn’t know, the way you obtain this cash is you work long strenuous hours doing stuff you may not necessarily want to do. Then they give you money for doing the fun stuff you do want to do. Having enough of this cash can sometimes make you feel like royalty. In fact, there’s a saying that cash is king. And as we all know, it’s good to be the king. And I prefer cash in the form of the shekel. But I’m deviating from my point so that’ll be a blog for a different day. Or did I write that one already?