Life after death: the greatest human imagination

Reflection VI

Introduction

The greatest courage someone can have, might be the ability to wake up from depending on one of the biggest human imaginations: the afterlife. It takes a rare kind of strength to accept that life truly ends with the final breath. How many of us find peace in the idea that the afterlife is just a reflection of our amazing ability to tell stories and imagine things? I’m not sure about that. Some people do come to terms with it and feel a sense of relief, while others fall apart with the idea of it, feeling like they’d be trapped in a nightmare. But one thing is clear: it takes a lot to let go of the most comforting idea we’ve created, which is the belief that death isn’t the end, but a doorway. For many, this belief gives them hope for many things. Still, that same hope can become a trap that keeps people waiting for meaning instead of making it. This reflection asks whether that hope frees us or holds us back from living fully in the one life we know we have.

Hope and Nietzsche

From ancient myths to modern religions, the concept of the afterlife has been humanity’s most enduring narrative. It appears not only as a hope but as an answer to suffering, injustice, and the unbearable thought that everything we are will vanish without a trace. Heaven, reincarnation, spiritual dimensions… Each form of this narrative speaks to a longing for continuity, a refusal to believe that life ends in silence and that our existence has no purpose. That doesn’t mean one can not feel fulfilment, meaning, and the will to live. While not believing in the afterlife might make some people discouraged from existing, for thinkers like Nietzsche, “… ( false ) hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man .” For Nietzsche, hope is poison in disguise, because it keeps humans enduring endless misery instead of confronting reality.

Hope, delusion and passive living

For me, hope should have a balance, and I don’t think its simplest form is evil. Still, hope can keep people waiting for change rather than acting with will and clarity. Instead of facing hard truths and acting to bring about change personally or in their environment, hope can make people cling to a situation very passively. If suffering is inevitable, then hope makes it last longer by creating false expectations. For Nietzsche, it is better to confront reality and overcome it than to stay suspended in illusion. Regarding the subject of life after death, we should have the courage to correct the chronology of the words we are using. There is nothing inside the body that detaches after the heart stops beating. It is death after life. There is no life after death. We live according to our own colours, the choices we make to paint our canvas of life and then die. As Epicurus once said, “ Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. “ Epicurus argued that death is not to be feared because it is nothing to us. When we are alive, death is not present, and when death is present, we no longer exist. Therefore, death cannot be experienced by the living, nor can it touch the dead.

When we examine the afterlife philosophically, we must ask: is it truth, or is it comfort? Maybe it’s a story so deeply rooted in our minds that many people can’t tell it apart from reality. We believe in it not because we’ve seen it, but because not believing feels like stepping into chaos and emptiness at the same time. But what this kind of hope also does for the afterlife, according to Nietzsche, is preventing people from living fully in the now. How many of us live more for an afterlife that doesn’t exist, than we ever did live in the now for the only life we have? How many of us would feel anger towards all the ways religious communities manipulated us about an afterlife, only for them to count the money from the books they sold with these stories written in them, while they made us a religious prisoner forever?

Avoiding a quiet prison

To reject the afterlife is not to reject meaning. On the contrary, it may be an invitation to find meaning here, now, without the promise of eternal reward or punishment. This life is all we have, and every moment counts. Every connection, every act of kindness and every pursuit of beauty becomes more urgent, because it will not repeat itself. Still, for those who imagine life after death, this belief often serves as a moral compass, a source of hope, and a comfort in times of grief. There is no shame in seeking comfort in imagination; it is, after all, a defining feature of being human. But when that imagination becomes a dependency by preventing us from living fully in the present, then it may become a quiet prison.

Living in the now without belief in an afterlife requires cultivating courage through practices in daily life. One way to do this is by focusing attention on the present moment, which reduces the need to escape into hopes or fears about what comes after death. Accepting life’s impermanence can inspire a deeper appreciation for each experience, encouraging us to prioritise what truly matters. Meaning can be created not through eternal promises but through our actions, relationships, and personal values. Building strength against uncertainty is essential, and practices like personal reflections can help us become more comfortable with life’s chaos and emptiness. Having supportive connections is also important: it helps to have honest people around with whom open conversations about mortality and purpose can take place, which can provide mental clarity. Finally, creating personal rituals, like simple acts of gratitude, can offer comfort and help us find meaning in small things and the finite nature of life itself.

So… is it more courageous to believe in an afterlife, or not to? Perhaps both require courage in different ways. Still, I believe letting go of one of the greatest human constructions that makes us a prisoner to our own imagination is the way to feel fully human, here and now, in the only world where we will ever exist. In the end, what remains clear is that the power of our lives will lie in our own hands if we use humanity’s great ability to fantasise and imagine to create our own meaning in this world instead of channelling all the possible moments for an afterlife that doesn’t exist. To live well, perhaps, is not to seek the afterlife, but to understand why we imagine it in the first place, and to choose life on earth in light of that understanding.

Thank you for reading.

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