Personally I'm petrified of dying, probably out of fear of not being able to justify my life as amounting to anything. It'd be bad enough to think that if I were now lying in a hospital bed knowing I was merely a useless pile of skin waiting for death, but imagine stepping out into the road and seeing a bus flying towards you. In that split second your life flashes before your eyes, literally, as you try to find some big enough accomplishment so that at least they have something good to say at your funeral.
I also have an issue with how I'm going to die. I want to have a proud death, not something long and drawn out but not something pitiful and quick - "Here lies James, he choked on an apple pip". How depressing would that be? I don't mean it's depressing because I'm dead but because of the lack of nobility. I can't be alone in thinking this way, surely.
I'm certainly not saying that because death is inevitable and inescapable that we may as well all top ourselves now, that way our collective achievements add up to nothing. But my conscious has no great desire to go out into the world and find the cure to cancer or be the first to step foot on Mars. My real problem is that death bears an overwhelming uncertainty as to the "when" and "how", and while I have no real big goals in life, I'd like to be able to list my achievements on more than the back of a stamp.
Side note: don't use this is some sort of therapy evidence against my mental welfare, I'm not depressed or unhappy, I'm merely curious.
This probably, in some shape or form, has something to do with a deep-seated need to be acknowledged by a system that I abhor. Everyone has their own little quirks but these are often not enough to make us successful, but it's these quirks that make us who we are.*
*I added that cheesy ending to make it seem like I'm not completely nihilistic and twisted
*I added that cheesy ending to make it seem like I'm not completely nihilistic and twisted