Read Online Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes - Free Book Online

mourir. What Cicero meant was not that thinking regularly about death makes you fear it less, but rather that the philosopher, when philosophizing, is practising for death—in the sense that he is spending time with his mind and ignoring the body which death will obliterate. For Platonists, after death you became a pure soul, liberated from corporeal impediment, and thus better able to think freely and clearly. So while alive, the philosopher had to prepare for this post-mortal state, by techniques such as fasting and self-flagellation. Platonists believed that, after death, things started looking up. Epicureans, on the other hand, believed that, after death, there was nothing. Cicero, apparently (I use “apparently” in the sense of “my brother also told me”), combined the two traditions into a cheery Antique either/or: “After death, either we feel better or we feel nothing.”
    I ask what is supposed to happen to the very large population of non-philosophers in the Platonic afterworld. Apparently, all ensouled creatures, including animals and birds—and perhaps even plants—are judged on their behaviour in the life they’ve just finished. Those who don’t make the grade return to earth for another corporeal round, perhaps going up or down a species (becoming, say, a fox or a goose) or just up or down within a species (being promoted, for instance from female to male). Philosophers, my brother explains, don’t automatically win disembodiment: you have to be a good chap as well for that. But if they do win, they then have a head start on the multitudes of non-philosophers—not to mention water lilies and dandelions. They also, of course, have a better go of things in this life, by their advance closeness to that ultimate ideal condition. “Yes,” he continues. “There are some questions you might want to raise (e.g. what’s the point of getting a head start in a race that goes on for ever?). But it’s not really worth the time thinking about the matter—it is (in technical philosophical jargon) a complete load of bollocks.”
    I ask him to elaborate on his dismissal of the line “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him” as “soppy.” He admits that he isn’t really sure how to take my statement: “I suppose as a way of saying ‘I don’t believe there are any gods, but I wish there were (or perhaps: but I wish I did).’ I can see how someone might say something like that (try putting ‘dodos’ or ‘yetis’ for ‘gods’), tho’ for my part I’m quite content with the way things are.” You can tell he teaches philosophy, can’t you? I ask him about a specific matter, he breaks down the proposition logically, and supplies alternative nouns to display its absurdity, or weakness, or soppiness. But his answer seems just as strange to me as my question did to him. I hadn’t asked him what he thought about someone missing dodos or yetis (or even gods in the lowercase plural), but God.
    I check whether he has ever had any religious feelings or yearnings. NO and NO is his reply—“Unless you count being moved by the Messiah , or Donne’s sacred sonnets.” I wonder if this certainty has been passed on to his two daughters, now in their thirties. Any religious sentiments/faith/supernatural longings, I ask. “No, never, not at all,” replies the younger. “Unless you count not walking on the lines on the pavement as a supernatural longing.” We agree that we don’t. Her sister admits to “a brief yearning to be religious when I was about eleven. But this was because my friends were, because I wanted to pray as a way of getting things, and because the Girl Guides pressured you to be Christian. This went away fairly quickly when my prayers went unanswered. I suppose I am agnostic or even atheist.”
    I am glad she has maintained the family tradition of giving up religion on trivial grounds. My brother because he suspected George VI had not gone to heaven; me in order not to be distracted