"Life will only get better in death."

What an odd thing to say, is it not?

"Life will only get better in death."

Did I simply stop believing in happiness and become a bitter person?

Does existence get "happy" when the end turns the sadness upside down and life into death?

If it was just about happiness, I wouldn't have said that.

In my ideas about dying, there will be neither hapiness nor sadness when it's done.

Then why does it get "better"?

What is "better"?

This is a matter of personal opinion and the following might not match with your ideas at all. As a person with a darker life, as I like to call us, who are not quite lucky with circumstances of upbringing or similar feats comprimising mental health, I dare say for us death is more inviting. People living a life of carefree sunlight might not think so. It only makes sense for people who enjoy life to cling to it and rather fear it being taken away.

I have not quite found it long-term enjoyable yet.

At least not as enjoyable as my naive vision about what it's like to be dead

Take life from me and I will not feel like having lost anything valuable. It was simply what I was given and am ready to give back at any time.

Now there's this timeless question remaining then again, what is it like in the beyond?

Many cling to religion in order to pretend to have an answer, others avoid the question in its entirety, others drown in an endless search to find a true answer. Maybe I got a possible hint of an answer in an unwanted glimpse at the beyond. Not a near-death experience or anything like that, but through dreams. You know these moments, when you dream up some story where you end up dying and then wake up?

Well, imagine not waking up.

That's what my dreams usually do. For some reason dying does not end my sleep and there I go, after some hard-fought battles as a soldier in a fantasy war my unconscious made up, I am beheaded. Other times I drown, being crushed beneath the waves of a river, or I fall from a cliff down into my doom.

And then?

Then I always was very confused, because my body was gone.

Everything was gone.

Except my ability to think, which is something I doubt mirrors actual death, but who knows?

In that nothingness there was no happiness.

Is it "better" than life then?

For me, yes.

You see, my life is a rather lonely one and I sometimes I think I see and feel too much, with my "big antenna" as my father called it.

In death there is no loneliness.

This human desire to connect to others disappears. There is wishlessness in general. What could be better than not needing anything at all? No unfulfilled longing, no hopeful wishes that turn into dust in the wrong moment.

In death there is peace.

No one there to hurt you, no one hurting another, no war, no fighting out of human greed or unregulated emotions. Only there the view upon people (even unintentionally) causing each other pain is beyond sight.

In death there is no pain.

All the toils of living in a body failing itself are cured then. No daily struggle to work with chronic illness, no wounds of any kind. The world cannot torture your body in death.

In death there is no fear.

Nothing can be lost then anymore, when everything is gone. It is the truest form of unburdening, where worries are ripped out by their roots.

Therefore in death there is freedom.

You see, death doesn't seem so bad, does it?

Especially compared to life. Funnily enough, as having dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts before, death is my motivation to stay alive. After all, I do not want to cheat him, by choosing my own time for the end and thereby hurting the few people that do know me.

And there is another thing.

I know one day he surely will come.

He stays this guarantee, no matter how painful, happy, hard, easy life is, death will one day welcome me with open arms and bring the peace of nothingness in his eternal embrace.

In all the beautiful properties of death I listed before, I see a task.

Wishlessness, fearlessness, peace, ...

I want to achieve death in life.

Only to a certain degree of course and sadly painlessness is not something that is possible.

Still, death is a good friend of mine.

An inspiration, motivator, comforter and lover...

Life will only get "better" in death.