Life is like a pearl: it needs a grain of sand at its center—death—as the irritant, the enemy, to stimulate the production of the mother-of-pearl of life around it. But death remains at its center. At the heart of life there is death. Death is our being. Man is mortal.
— Peter Kreeft, Love is Stronger than Death
Either life has meaning, or it does not. If life has meaning, then death must also have meaning. How you view death is essentially how you view life.
A syllogism:
“Death is our being.”
Death appears as nothing.
Therefore, nothingness is our being.
Hmmm…is the syllogism true? Is it a paradox—a mystery to explore, not solve, not conquer, not resolve, only to make aspects of it more clear.
I ask, “What is being?” What is nothingness?”
It all seems pointless. Maybe that is the point.
“Death is no accident if love is no accident.”