I have this weird thing where if I have blood drawn while sitting up I am likely to pass out. It isn't an aversion to blood; it's something to do with the fact that I have rather low blood pressure. So I've learned that if I'm having blood drawn it is best for me to be relatively supine. The last time I passed out while having blood drawn I didn't realize it had happened until I was coming back around to consciousness. One moment I was chatting away to the phlebotomist and the next moment I was being revived and offered juice. In between those two moments was a gap of time in which there was nothingness. When I sleep, I dream. But this was simply... nothingness. Or, at least, nothing I remember.

That experience changed the way I think about the existence of an afterlife. Maybe there is an afterlife, maybe not; I don't know (nobody does). But if death equals nothingness--a complete extinguishment of consciousness--then why fear it? It's only natural. And if there is something more, I guess (like everyone else) I'll find out when I get there.

Schopenhauer wrote, "After your death you will be what you were before your birth." But what was I before I was born? Scattered atoms? A spiritual being? A thought in the mind of God? I don't remember.