Death

The past few days have been very interesting to say the least. I've had a few surprises and I actually wrote another piece with the intention to share. But it is personal - intensely so. Therefore, I will keep it on my hard drive and look at it from time to time. Still, this one is pretty interesting if I do say so. Here goes. Today, I will be talking about death. Duh.

Don’t be scared. I know this is a bit of a departure given the nature of my posts so far but I’ve thought about death a lot over the past few years. I’ve always been fascinated by how people view it. Are you scared of it? Why are you scared if you are? I don’t think people ever really think about it. So once again I’m asking: Are you afraid to die?

Let’s start with a logical assumption: I believe in heaven and hell. I believe that I’m a good person and that if I die I’ll go to heaven. Since heaven is such a wonderful place, why should I be afraid? I should actually welcome it if I’m being totally rational. Given that we all claim to be so religious, we should actually subscribe to this view. But for some reason we don’t. We are scared – this is one of the reasons why we will always say “God dey...” when the time comes to actually do something about the situation in the country. To an extent, I do this too and I’ve been thinking about why I do it.

In a simultaneous action game, coordination is needed to get the best result for all parties. A good example is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In this situation, we have two suspects being interrogated in different rooms about a crime they committed. They are each encouraged to confess to the crime with the reward being that one will go free if the other one doesn’t. Hypothetically, this is what happens:

·         If they both confess, they get 5 years each

·         If one confesses and the other doesn’t, the confessor goes free and the other spends 10 years in prison

·         If they each refuse to confess, they get 1 year probation but they don’t know this.

So, If player 2 decides to confess, the best thing for player 1 to do would be to confess (5 years is better than 10). If player 2 decides not to confess, the best thing for player 1 to do would be to confess (going free is better than probation). The same thing holds for player 2. Therefore, the likely outcome is that they both confess and get 5 years each. However, the best outcome for them would be to keep their mouths shut but because they cannot coordinate, they end up confessing. That’s the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the situation in the country. People are unwilling to act because they don’t know what others are thinking and are afraid of the consequences of acting alone which would likely be death or grievous bodily harm. So the government only has to make coordination difficult to maintain the status quo. Hence, bad infrastructure, bad record keeping systems, a partial judiciary and so on. I realize that I’ve digressed but I will tie things up.

Since people are not supposed to be afraid to die, what’s keeping us from taking control? I think the prospect of suffering and the consequences of death scare us far more than death itself. I was watching Robocop and someone asked me if I could choose to live after going through what he had gone through. I thought about it a bit and came to the conclusion that I would. People’s motivations for living come into play when facing death. They have people depending on them for survival or they have loved ones who would simply go to pieces if they were gone. Some just hate the idea of being made to suffer. That’s why most people would take a bullet in the head if given the choice between that and torture before being executed. The fact is that the end result is the same but people prefer one route over the other.

To answer my question: I’m not afraid to die. I am however afraid of suffering before I die and afraid of the effect my death would have on my family. Death is most felt by those left behind. Also, let’s face it: some people are afraid they’ll end up in hell. Ha-ha.

What about you?

That’s all for now. Till next time, I remain your fantastic Mr. Fox.