My Existential Crisis (Part 2)
Inner Circle Inquiry
I had to find the equation so that non-existence stopped feeling like a terrifying theft.
First, I turned to four friends- men I regard as having superior mental constitutions. I asked them how they deal with their own mortality. I was searching for words my heart desperately needed to hear to quell this deep existential grief.
George (Record setting Collegiate Baseball Hall of Famer) alluded to Design and Purpose. If our arrival here wasn't an accident, our departure won't be either. He told me, “How many ancestral mirrors had to line up just to get to us? There has to be a reason we are here. There has to be something else. This whole thing called life isn't just by accident... There is a destination waiting. There is something waiting for us. I am confident."
John (Mr. Universe/Mr. World Bodybuilder) relied on Cosmic Symmetry- a trust that the universe wouldn't design a magnificent entrance only to make the exit a cruel letdown. He believes “the afterlife has to be wonderful because birth is so miraculous!”
Bill (PhD Health Psychologist & author) threw me off completely. He remarked, “I just let the thought pass. I never expected to live forever… I don’t think about it.”
I had to struggle to wrap my mind around Bill’s approach. To Bill, mortality is handled through Existential Acceptance combined with Cognitive Defusion. Instead of seeking cosmic reassurance, he relies on a grounded, pragmatic perspective. Bill fully accepts the natural limits of human biology. By stating he never expected to live forever, he acknowledges that mortality is the default rule of existence- not a tragic theft or an error to be corrected.
Instead of grappling with dread, Bill observes the thought without catching onto it or letting it trigger anxiety. He shifts his cognitive energy away from the unknowable future and anchors himself in the living present…I wish I could do that.
I asked Raphael (Decorated US Army Special Forces) if he believed in the afterlife; here was his response: “Absolutely! My belief…more of a conviction, is a complicated scenario filled with potential and/or unknown events eventually leading those worthy souls into Gods Holy Heavens-exactly what, where, when, why and who remains a garbled mystery for me. But it’s inevitability will certainly occur at some juncture in the next phase of our journey.”
Ok, I obtained the needed opinions of friends I respected, that are seeing their horizons up close, and now I had to decide for myself- what can balance me. Having an athlete mindset and a philosopher’s spirit- I needed a strategy, a Gameplan to engineer a bridge to cross over my dread and STEEL my resolve. I somehow need to take the “thought captive” (ala 2Cor10:5).
DISPUTING HAPPENSTANCE
After several long days of praying, self-analysis, critical contemplation, abrupt emotional collapses, and intense soul-searching, I formulated Four Central Pillars to support the argument that life is intentional, rather than cosmic coincidence:
1. Pillar 1 (Mathematical Deduction):
Before I was born, I was in that "nothingness" (VOID) for billions of years. I had no shape, no thoughts, no name. Yet, against all statistical odds, I happened. I was given the gift of life.
Conclusion:
If the universe could pull me out of nothingness once to experience this timeline, it is mathematically and philosophically arrogant to assume that nothingness is the only calculation it knows how to execute next.
2. Pillar 2 (Personal Proof):
My father’s death is not a theory. It is data. It is undeniable structural proof of Divine Intent.
I was nearly sixty years old when the clock ran down on his earthly form. For 3 agonizing days, he had refused food. His organs were systematically shutting down and in the quiet gravity of that final afternoon, an unspoken, instinctive pull drew us to his side.
We surrounded the bed we had placed for him just off the living room—four witnesses suspended in time: my oldest son Tommy, my mother, my wife, and I. We stood on the threshold, awaiting his departure from this earth.
What I am about to tell you is stripped of embellishment. It is free of exaggeration. It remains as clear-minded and indelible as the day it was forged into my consciousness.
After twenty minutes of absolute stillness, he took what we believed to be his final, shallow breath. Then, the impossible occurred. My father unmistakably turned his head toward me! He opened his eyes. He locked his gaze directly onto mine with an uncanny, piercing awareness—a silent, roaring transmission of gratitude for the 3 1/2 months my mother and I had spent performing his hospice care.
In the next heartbeat, the veil was pierced.
His spirit—a transparent yet undeniably physical mist—escaped from his forehead and shot straight into the ceiling above!
Within seconds, the physical shell grew lifeless. His face turned deep purple. His eyes shut completely. The soul had fled the cocoon.
To recount this phenomenon twelve years later feels like grasping at a fanciful dream, yet it was the realest moment of my life. We all witnessed it. Tommy can testify to it. My father’s final act on this planet shattered my existential fears. It proved, with absolute certainty, that we are infinitely more than a physical body stamped with an expiration date.
If I accept that a higher intelligence actively curated, sculpted, and manifested my father’s specific soul—and I absolutely do—then I am forced to a structural conclusion: An intelligent Creator does not design a masterpiece just to incinerate it. An immense investment of energy, cosmic design, and specific intent always serves a long-term purpose.
Conclusion:
If physical death were a permanent deletion—a meaningless dismissal into a black, howling void—it would mean the Architect of the cosmos is an erratic, irrational actor. It would mean the Divine builds infinitely complex, beautiful souls just to casually discard them into the trash heap of eternity. From a structural, logical, and existential standpoint, that makes absolutely no sense. We are not built for annihilation. We are designed for continuation.
3. Pillar 3 (The Transition/Relocation Phase):
Picture an unborn baby in a mother’s womb. If you could tell that baby, it would eventually have to leave, it would feel like a cruel expulsion into terrifying "nothingness." But the baby MUST leave. It has outgrown the space. It needs to enter a much larger, grander world for which it was designed.
I think my current fear mirrors the baby in the womb. Using my creativity template, I envisioned an angel approaching my prior "Void-Self" and saying, “I am going to manifest you into a world filled with colors, oceans, music, poetry, and love, and give you 71 years of profound consciousness.” Of course, my Void-Self would have found that completely impossible to believe. It would have seemed like an absurd, illogical fantasy.
Conclusion:
If our earthly embodiment was intentional, then physical death is a transition (a relocation) rather than a termination of the SOUL. Otherwise, the Designer would intentionally create (design) a conscious soul, give it finite earthly experience, and simply extinguish it… Perhaps Physical Life does not represent the Entire Timeline of the soul- and Death (as we know it), is not an ending; but another birth into whatever comes next.
4. Pillar 4 Scriptural Reassurance:
In the Holy Bible, a human being is not an accidental byproduct. Humanity was created in the image of God (Yahweh). Luke 12:7 states: 'Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.'
If God knows every small detail about us, down to the hairs on our head, He also knows the exact number of our days on this earth. He cares for us too deeply for us to live in anxiety; that is not the behavior of an apathetic God who discards souls. Furthermore, Jesus defeated death itself on the cross, promising in John 3:16 that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The New Testament rejects the idea of 'soul sleep' (unconsciousness), demonstrating that being with God after death is an active, relational experience. Paul describes death as an immediate relocation to where Jesus is, a state he explicitly favors over living on earth: 'We are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord' (2 Cor 5:8 LSB).
Conclusion:
Paul further proves that death brings an immediate, improved experience: 'For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain... having the desire to depart (die) and be with Christ, for that is very much better' (Phil 1:21, 23 LSB). If death meant unconsciousness, it could not logically be described as 'gain' or 'very much better' than actively serving Christ on earth. Scripture exposes the grave not as an end, but as an upgrade. And it is this exact scriptural reality that ultimately broke my gridlock!
P.S.
In the course of 10 turbulent days performing deep psychological and spiritual excavation, my Existential Crisis was resolved. Yes, a profound peace now reassures me whenever I look inward and see those Yellow Stickies sitting like postscripts around the table. Final Tally on inevitability: ‘Death is a LIE!’
B.P.S.
At an age when there are no illusions about the promise of tomorrow, I searched for a motivational one-liner to take the sting out of my impending fate. I dug deep for that one phrase to express my cosmic non-compliance and hack the timeline after the Terminal Event. Thus, I have a pre-scheduled, automatic, preempted self-reply—to be deployed at the exact moment that last grain of sand drops:
“Fuck Death!”
…from the Lookout Post.