Agnostic Hope for Life After Death

I originally made this an Instagram post on 2/13/2025.

I’ve concerned myself with life after death since I was pretty young— like many, it’s important to me to know that there’s an afterlife or eternal opportunity to be reunited with my loved ones.

As I flew to my hometown to say goodbye to my cat and be with my family to process the loss & grief and back, my existential dread and wonder— overall existential awareness— has been hitting me harder.

Part of the wonder is sonder— as I looked at the
vastness of life and evidence of my oblivion beneath me, I couldn’t help but think about the incomprehensible existence of so much beyond what I could see.

I couldn’t help but look far ahead as the lights and cities and land blurred far into the distance fading— what is beyond the bubble of what I know and can imagine? Beyond the pains I feel, what possibilities beyond that exact point of my life are out there for me, that I will experience?

As a human, inevitably imperfect— I hope that there is more beyond this. I hope that there is far greater seemingly impossible things than what my mind can comprehend when trying to use the lens of strict logic and worldly proof to reconcile with faith of what I hope to be true.

With my existential thoughts it is inevitable that I’ll experience both wonder and dread. Grief and possibilities. Hope and cynicism. Perhaps I can make room for both.

I often experience resistance in balancing my passion for life where I place value on my own feelings of aliveness with being mindfully committed to meaning beyond my single life. I’m still figuring it out.

I can both be grateful for the good & self honoring pleasure I experience living allows me in my privileged life, and also grateful for the relief death gives me from an imperfect world filled with suffering.

Maybe the good— manifested through true love behind oneself in the forms of connection, belonging, altruism, generosity— is evidence of miracles beyond human comprehension. Or maybe they’re just natural occurrences of survival in evolution.

At the end of the day, I’d like to believe in miracles.

If everything has a source, shouldn’t love and consciousness beyond selfishness, too?

I really hope so.