What’s the opposite of life? Some may say death. But life is a period of time; death is a moment. Saying life and death are opposites is like saying the opposite of light is turning off the lights. No, the opposite of light is darkness.
People use the expression, “it’s a matter of life and death.” But that phrase strikes me as incorrect, as faulty parallelism, so to speak. Life and death are non-antonymous.
Some people think it’s unfathomable that you stop existing when you die. Surely, there’s an afterlife, they say. Surely, it can’t just end, they say. And I concede there is an afterlife. And I will reveal its exact nature to you now.
The afterlife is equivalent to the before-life.
Remember what your life was like in the year 1861 and at the turn of the century in 4.7210883 billion BC? I do! My life wasn’t like anything then because my life didn’t exist then. Same deal after you’re gone.
So, update the expression. It’s not a matter of life and death. It’s a matter of life and truly eternal nothingness. Or, at least, the early onset thereof.
