Death

As i flip open today's newspaper, there were several articles speaking about the escalating cost of funeral and purchasing burial plot as investment property. As i read those articles, i am rather disheartened at how our life today has been mired in materialism to a point that we even want to make money out of death. All these leads to a question: what is death and how we should treat it. Death as i define is the end of our present life on earth. I believe in god and therefore i believe we all have a soul,Our physical body is just a temporary vessel for our soul while we are still stuck on earth. This is pretty much what i believe in. Death is a time where we detach ourselves from this present world and that our loved one learn to let go of us. One profound truth that everyone should acknowledge is that we come into this world alone and we leave this world alone. Life and death is a rather individualistic experience which you can't really share with others. Probably by now you maybe thinking why am i stating all this cliche. Well it just supposed to serve as a reminder that whatever we have in the world, whatever we work for will come to nothing. That really make life rather meaningless you may think. i beg to differ. i think we should live our present life to the fullest potential, to learn about our weaknesses as human and to strive to overcome them, to learn that each of us are destined for different things and hence to learn in this all-knowing being called God to lead us and guide us, and to learn to be faithful steward in what we are entrusted on earth.

The next thing i want to share is how should we treat death? i don't believe in burning paper effigies, burning hell notes and have all sorts of prayer said for me. Not that because i am a Christian and therefore i say this but rather as a firm believer that all thing will come to nothingness, whatever material items we see now will pretty much be absent in the afterlife. i always joke that at the rate some people are burning paper houses, hell money and etc, hell would be having tremendous inflationary pressure. So yeah i don't buy into all these custom. As for how i want my relatives or family to do when i die, all i ask is that  i be cremated and have my ask thrown into the sea, don;t even need an urn. i believe that when we die, let not even our death possess and inch of land as it can be used for the next generation. No need to have elaborate ceremony for my death, just probably hang a portrait of me in the house and remember me in prayer. An as for what i can do when i am still alive, i hope i will be able to touch other lives and leave an indelible marks which is beyond the physical death itself.