What's Up Column: Mortality

There are obvious times when one begins to question their mortality.
Any impending doom for certain, but there are those lazy times when one might make an attempt to tally up their life story. I consider flying to be at least an extremely slight brush against death. (Namely when the turbulence hits.)
With no real imminent threat, my thoughts usually take me to mundane places – such as spacing out in the shower or the particular crunch of my Mini-Wheats that morning. (Brown sugar frosting, in case you’re asking.)
Seems kinda dull doesn’t it?
If we could get an advance warning of when our demise would come, would we strive to engage in more exciting activities? Or, if your life is flashing before your eyes, one would hope it would be interesting. If it is indeed true that our awareness of time stretches at the moment of our passing, you don’t want to thinking: “Geez, can I skip some of this?”
Certainly a lot of people believe that no matter how mundane their lives are, there’s a chance at some reward in the afterlife. That’s all well and good for religious folks, but what about those of us who don’t believe in God? (Or whatever your cosmic equivalent may be)
(And jeepers, no, I’m not going to get into my brand of atheism, not now anyway.)
If one doesn’t believe in an afterlife, than your final moment of conscious thought should have quite a high value. After all, not believing in an afterlife means one now has to contemplate the alternative.
So, how do you think about nothing?
It would seem to be impossible to imagine non-existence. You can’t quantify not being. Though, once you go, you won’t have anything to complain about. Oblivion is a pretty final thing, and calling it “the long sleep” doesn’t make it more comforting.
Still, the popular notions of passing beyond don’t interest me in the least. I have no interest in organized religion, and the thought of my essence spending the rest of its time opening and closing cupboard doors sounds pretty laughable.
(Seriously, don’t ghosts have anything better to do?)
I’m not saying oblivion is necessarily preferable, but when the end comes and there’s no light at the end of tunnel – my thoughts about it will be pretty moot.
I’m only disappointed that I’ve been thinking these thoughts later in my life. Turning 30 was a high point in my life, and I’ve been having the best years of my life so far. A lot of this is due to the work I’ve put in to trying to be more hyper-aware of my life. I’ve exercised my free will into creating an interesting life for myself, and all it took was an acknowledgement that it isn’t all that hard to do so.
So, there I was, on my flight to Vancouver, staring at the endless, mountainous landscape – lazily tallying up my life so far.
If a short flight and some easy philosophizing on the inevitable end of being is a great catalyst for change, then why aren’t more people doing so?
One can never say whether they’re going to leave this world in a gentle way, but at least, not matter what flavour of afterlife you choose to believe in, you can make steps to get out satisfied.