What happens when we die?
I’ve never been a very spiritual person. I don’t think I believe in an afterlife, or reincarnation, or ghosts, or angels, or curses. I’ve more or less made peace with the idea that when we die, that’s it: we’re simply gone. I don’t find that particularly scary (at least, not in my early 20s) and, truth be told, until recently, I didn’t spend that much time thinking about it.
I began to question myself when I listened to a recent episode of the goop podcast, in which host Elise Loehnen interviews Leslie Kean, journalist and author of Surviving Death, about potentially life’s greatest mystery: what happens when we die. Kean explains that there is a lot more proof of life after death than we might initially believe, and that scientists simply dismiss such a possibility based on the notion that ‘it can’t be; therefore it isn’t.’
At first, I was hesitant to really hear what Kean was saying, but she speaks with a matter-of-fact clarity that is hard to dismiss. She doesn’t proclaim to be a miracle worker, an oracle, or even a woman of great certainty; rather, she makes death and consciousness less about mysticism and more about curiosity and possibility. Nobody has been able to explain consciousness. It’s all theoretical. Therefore, what happens ²¹´Ú³Ù±ð°ùÌýconsciousness is an open question, and Kean suggests that our answers should remain equally open. After all, none of us °ù±ð²¹±ô±ô²âÌýknow what happens when we die, so it’s foolish to commit to any school of thought that proclaims one thing or another to be unequivocally true.
I can’t say that, upon listening, I suddenly believe wholeheartedly in reincarnation or life after death, but that’s not really the point. The point is that living in a state of curiosity is more freeing and perhaps more helpful than living in a state of stubborn certainty, where there’s no room for growth or for change.