Death has been a question since my grandfather died when I was eight. I have always been confused by the Christian life process, and could never relate, particularly to the storyline for how I would see him again, a consideration which, even before ten, I never acknowledged. My problem with Christianity has always been the duality of death: either we will eternally suffer in hell or thrive forever among our loved ones — but nothing in between — and I never believed in it.

Thirty years later curiosity about Eastern philosophies gave me a much better perspective and isolated me even more from my Catholic roots, but not even Buddhism resolves the death concept because I do not believe in reincarnation or any spiritual recycling.

Perhaps it’s a simpler concept than we think. In my construction, life originates only from local materials, so death is simply a return to our initial state of nothingness, an absolute end. Our hope for transcendence probably comes from the fact that we sleep and go through regular unconscious periods, seemingly returning from the void every day, giving us the illusion of cycles.

The human brain fills in the gaps of our ignorance. It deceives and placates us with narratives to explain why we are alive by occupying our existence with thoughts and rabbit holes. Take all that away, and what’s left but the random, meaningless coincidence of our consciousness?

But, maybe I’m wrong, too.