“I don’t want to die because no one checks in on me.”

“What?”

“Nobody is checking on me, so I feel like I can’t say goodbye.”

“Okay, hold on a moment. This is like a comedy skit. Firstly, you’re not actually dying, but you’re afraid to because… no one is checking on you?”

“Right, so how can I say goodbye?”

“Right. You’ve become confused. Let me explain.

Firstly, it doesn’t matter if people check on you when you are dead, while you are still alive. That’s just plain confusion.

Secondly, even if they did, you would be dead, and would not be able to say goodbye. In fact, I daresay you wouldn’t notice. More still: you would not be, in your dead state, sitting around doing accounting about who stopped in to see you off.”

“But it goes way beyond that. I think you actually mean that you are concerned that the people you want to be concerned about you dying, do not appear to be concerned about you dying — even though, as I previously mentioned, you do not appear to be dying in any obviously uncommon way that everyone else isn’t. So the people you want to be concerned about your death are not concerned (as you are not actually dying) and this is upsetting to you.

“Extending this, it becomes obvious that, while alive, you expect certain people to show grave concern about your possible, eventual, future death… even though now would be an inappropriate time for them to express such concern.

There’s more. I think you realize that when you actually die, people will be very affected and concerned, but that will be reserved for when you -actually die- and is not something you should be measuring or concerning yourself with -while you are alive- because… well, it is at once insane and irrelevant.

This entire charade is based on bizarre and impossible confabulations of death, life, concern, and accounting. It’s all wrong. Life is about living, and what happens at death? That’s another ball of wax entirely.”

“This is amazing. I no longer feel like I am going to die.”

“Yes, that is because you are going to live.”

— excerpts from an anonymous conversation