🧩 Why Only Humans Worry About Mortality While Other Beings Live Freely
Death ☠️ is the most certain truth of life. Every being that is born will eventually die. 🌱🐦🐕🐘🐟 Yet, if you observe carefully, you will notice a peculiar difference:
A bird sings on the branch without worrying about its future death. 🎶🐦
A dog wags its tail in happiness without pondering what happens after death. 🐶❤️
A tree grows tall and strong without fearing when the axe might fall. 🌳✂️
But humans? We spend sleepless nights 😰, question endlessly 🤔, build philosophies 📚, religions ⛪, medical science 🏥, and even artificial intelligence 🤖 to either delay, deny, or “defeat” mortality.
So why is it that only humans live under the shadow of mortality, while other living beings accept it as part of existence? Let’s unfold this mystery step by step.
1. 🧠 Awareness Beyond Survival
Other beings live with basic awareness. Their consciousness is tuned to survival and living in the moment—finding food, protecting themselves, reproducing, and enjoying what is in front of them.
Humans, however, have self-awareness. We don’t just live; we reflect on life itself. We ask:
- “Why am I here?” 🤷
- “What happens after I die?” 🕊️
- “Can I live forever?” ♾️
This unique self-awareness makes us capable of art 🎨, science 🔬, and love 💞—but also makes us deeply aware of our mortality.
👉 Analogy: Imagine animals are like passengers on a train 🚂 enjoying the scenery without asking where the train is going. Humans, on the other hand, are the passengers who keep checking the map 🗺️, questioning the driver 🚉, and worrying about when the train will stop.
2. 🔮 Imagination of Future and Past
Other beings live almost entirely in the present moment 🌅. They don’t brood over yesterday’s mistakes or panic about tomorrow’s uncertainties.
Humans, with our advanced brains, can imagine the past, present, and future. This imagination helps us:
- Plan careers and goals 🎯
- Build societies and civilizations 🏙️
- Create stories, cultures, and dreams 📖✨
But it also means we can imagine our death long before it arrives. ⚰️ This ability to “see our end” in the mind creates fear, anxiety, and the need to control it.
👉 Analogy: Think of life as a stage play 🎭. Animals play their roles naturally, without worrying when the curtain will fall. Humans, however, not only act but also keep peeking behind the curtain, asking, “When will it end?”
3. 🏛️ Culture, Religion, and Mortality
Mortality gave rise to much of human culture. To deal with death, humans created:
- Religions ⛪🕌🕉️ promising heaven, rebirth, or salvation.
- Philosophies 📚 asking us to live virtuously or find meaning.
- Medicine and science 🧬 to delay death as much as possible.
- Art and legacy 🎨 so that something of us remains after we die.
Other beings don’t build temples or write books to escape mortality. They simply live and die. Humans, unable to accept finality, invent systems to make death “manageable.”
👉 Analogy: Imagine death as a storm 🌪️. Animals just take shelter and flow with nature. Humans, instead, build temples, write prayers, invent machines, and design philosophies to “negotiate” with the storm.
4. ⚖️ Benefits of Human Concern with Mortality
Being concerned about mortality is not only a burden; it has also shaped humanity in powerful ways:
🌟 1. Growth of Knowledge and Medicine:
Because we fear death, we study disease, invent cures, and build hospitals. This concern has helped us live longer and healthier lives. 🏥💉
🌟 2. Search for Meaning:
Knowing life is short makes us value purpose. We write poetry, build monuments, and seek love, all to give our lives meaning before death arrives. ❤️🎶📖
🌟 3. Ethical Awareness:
Mortality reminds us that time is limited. That pushes humans to think about morality—what is right and wrong—because our actions leave a legacy after we are gone. ⚖️✨
🌟 4. Motivation to Create:
Fear of mortality drives creativity. Painters paint, writers write, builders build—all in an attempt to leave something behind. 🎨✍️🏰
👉 Analogy: Mortality is like a deadline ⏳. Without a deadline, students might not study. With it, they become serious. Similarly, the “deadline of death” makes humans innovate, create, and reflect.
5. 🪤 Losses of Human Obsession with Mortality
However, worrying too much about mortality also brings heavy costs:
😰 1. Anxiety and Fear:
Humans spend a lot of mental energy fearing death instead of enjoying life. This leads to stress, phobias, and depression.
💸 2. Exploitation Through Fear:
Religions, miracle healers, and industries sometimes exploit people’s fear of death for money or control.
🔒 3. Avoidance of Living:
In trying to avoid death, humans sometimes forget to live. We chase immortality through wealth, fame, or technology, missing out on simple joys. 🌼🍵
🧨 4. Wars and Conflicts:
Many wars have roots in beliefs about afterlife, salvation, or immortality. In trying to conquer death symbolically, humans create more suffering.
👉 Analogy: Mortality is like a shadow 🌑. If we keep staring at it, we miss the sunshine 🌞. Animals walk in the sunshine; humans often freeze in fear of the shadow.
6. 🐦 What We Can Learn from Other Living Beings
Other beings may not have human intelligence, but they demonstrate wisdom of living in harmony with mortality.
Birds sing each morning 🌅 as if life is eternal, even though it is not.
Dogs love unconditionally 🐾 without worrying about “tomorrow.”
Trees shed leaves 🍂 without fear, knowing new ones will grow.
From them, humans can learn to balance awareness of death with the joy of life.
👉 Analogy: Think of animals as children playing in the rain 🌧️, carefree and joyful. Humans are the adults worrying about catching a cold 🤒. Sometimes, it helps to remember how to play.
7. 🌈 The Middle Path: Chetasyog Perspective
From the lens of Chetasyog, mortality worry comes from the imbalance between Self-Me (individual existence) and Life-Is (cosmic consciousness).
- Self-Me fears death because it sees itself as separate and temporary.
- Life-Is accepts mortality as natural, because life continues beyond the individual.
When we align Self-Me with Life-Is, mortality becomes less of a curse and more of a teacher. 🪷
👉 Analogy: A wave 🌊 may fear disappearing into the ocean, but the ocean knows it never loses itself—it only transforms. Humans, like waves, must remember we are also the ocean of Life-Is.
✨ Conclusion: Living Fully With Mortality
So, why do only humans worry about mortality? Because we have self-awareness, imagination, culture, and the capacity to reflect. This brings great benefits—science, art, morality—but also heavy losses—fear, anxiety, conflict.
The solution is not to suppress the awareness of mortality but to integrate it wisely. Like animals, we can embrace the present 🌼. Like humans, we can create meaning 📚. And through awareness like Chetasyog, we can see mortality not as an end but as a reminder to live more deeply 🌈. 💡 Next time mortality worries you, look at a bird singing on a branch 🐦 or a child laughing in the park 👶. Life is not about escaping death—it’s about living fully before it arrives. 🌞🌿