When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
– John Keats
I found this poem by complete accident as I was mindlessly scrolling on my phone one morning, and it’s the first writing I’ve encountered in years that gave me pause before I carried on with my day. When I first wake up, I often have the attention span of an infant or toddler; I don’t usually do anything of actual substance until noon. But on this day, in glancing at the title, I immediately felt a critical blow to my gut: “When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be.” I could feel an ice-cold pit in my stomach threatening to paralyze my being.
This is a nasty habit that I’ll probably spend the rest of my life trying to break, but I often struggle to express how I feel, or at least, how to express myself in healthy and productive ways. I like to think I’ve improved over the years. I used to be incredibly volatile, and I destroyed several friendships by constantly arguing and hurling needless insults that often sought the jugular. Through the past few years of therapy and taking some much-needed medication, I have been able to completely reevaluate and recontextualize my past behavior and its sources. Overall, I’d say I’ve grown a lot and have developed much healthier relationships.
I used to find comfort in hiding behind a mask of amused, almost nihilistic indifference to the problems of day-to-day life and death itself. When the mask cracks or shatters into a thousand pieces of porcelain, I’m left with my true feelings and the full weight of my fears. For the longest, I suppose I believed the façade as well, but somewhere along the line, probably during therapy, I realized there was more to what lay underneath the carefully curated surface.
I’ve always had an urgency in how I approach life, much to my own detriment. I made careless errors in school, and I’m not even good at earnestly and carefully delving into the intricacies of things that I enjoy, let alone chores and work-related tasks. I’m always in a rush. I’ve never watched a movie without thinking about how much time has passed, and I often quit out of games after completing the tutorial or introduction, never to return to it again for fear of it being a waste of the finite time I have. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but after a lot of reflection alone and with my therapist, I attribute this urgency to an overruling and crippling fear of death that has long consumed me. It’s unbearably difficult for me to give an activity my fullest attention when I’m preoccupied with the inevitability of death. I know I’m not alone in being afraid, but I feel like everyone expresses their fear and finds comfort differently. I just haven’t found a perspective that gives me solace.
Earlier this year, I was devoured by the full weight of my death anxiety, the worst I’ve had since I was a kid and cried in bed at the thought of my parents dying one day. Obviously, the fleeting thought comes and goes on even the best of days, but when I’m in a more stable state of mind, it’s easier to shrug off. This particular wave of anxiety drove me to a darker place than I’d been in memory, and it consumed my waking days. I spent hours researching religions, near-death experiences, and theories on the afterlife, but nothing satisfied me. After all, even the most cohesive belief system is merely a product of humanity’s desire to find comfort in the unknown. So, what happens?
I get an intrusive thought of the last seconds of The Sopranos finale a lot. An abrupt and eerily quiet cut to black: “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?”
Is that what it’s really like? How terrifying. It sends chills through my body writing about it even now, and I’m in a better place mentally than I was when I first watched the scene. A lot of people would probably shrug at this. What does it matter if I’m not there to experience it? I don’t know. Every possibility is equally improbable and bleak in my mind nowadays, and I’m just trying my best to accept my inevitable death, because at least my questions will be answered in some form or another. Memento mori, or whatever.
I wasn’t particularly familiar with Keats. I took several classes where we covered him briefly, but I don’t think I understood him or the profound fear of death that pervades his work. It was probably one of those readings I skimmed outside of class. Reading the title, actually reading something with my atrophied brain, I was overwhelmed by how much I resonated with his words. It sounded like the thoughts echoing through my own head as I was wracked with anxiety, and I mean that in the best way. In the sonnet itself, he captures the same profound fear that haunts me, though he articulates it far more beautifully. The thing I find the most unbearable about death is the endless list of unrealized aspirations, hopes, and experiences that get wiped clean with one’s conscience. Ironically, all I accomplish in sitting in catatonic rumination on these fears is continuing to rob myself of these experiences. It speaks to reason, then, that I should be more proactive in living life to the fullest while I have it, allowing the fear of death to serve as a fire under my ass driving me toward my goals.
When I looked further into Keats and the meaning of the poem, I learned that he died from tuberculosis at 25. My heart broke when I read that. Here I was, 26 years old and in relatively good health, and I spend my time agonizing over the “right” thing to do in each moment of my life. Meanwhile, if I were in Keats’s position, I would’ve been dead for roughly a year by now. Sure, life expectancy is far better now than it was then, and as far as I’m aware, I’m not likely to encounter tuberculosis. Still, his untimely demise only serves to remind me that life is not only criminally finite, but it’s also painfully uncertain. Tomorrow, I could keel over from a heart attack, watch in horror as the darkness outside my window is illuminated by a mushroom cloud, or be killed by a ten-ton truck.
The other day, I saw a video of an incident that happened in 2016 in Brazil where a tanker truck’s braking mechanism failed as it went around a curve, careening it over a highway median and exploding as it collided with oncoming traffic. Six people left their houses that day completely oblivious to the fact that they’d meet their end in such a horrific way. The more angles I watched and details I read, it made me sick. Now, whenever I drive, I’m haunted by the thought of being at the mercy of the incompetence of others. Dying in general is no doubt terrifying, but the concept of dying a heroic warrior’s death or of well lived old age is far less terrifying; there’s a consent, or at least, a fairness to that kind of death. Regardless, such a fate isn’t a given. I realize that fixating on the concept to the point of disengaging from the world around me merely squanders my remaining time, but I’m hoping turning my lamentations into something creative for once will take the bite out of my death, whether it comes tomorrow or in 80 years.
I’m trying to learn to accept uncertainty. I feel like I’m always looking for a deeper meaning in things, whether it’s about me, other people, or random events. I suppose that’s magical thinking. Nonetheless, in my constant rumination on death, it struck me that there truly is nothing wrong with things potentially being meaningless; it’s okay to just be. So that’s what I’ve resolved to do. Some days are harder than others, but it’s a skill that I’ll have the rest of my life to hone.