this is gonna be strange, but one of the things that make me sad about death is the fact that everything tries fighting so hard to keep me alive dies too.
But chin up - the reason it was so sad to watch is because of the joy that life itself brings us. Don't forget to enjoy your life and your happiness today!
I think the sadness is somehow even greater because it may not have a brain, consciousness, or any understanding that it’s dying at all.
There’s no fear of what’s coming, no acceptance, no story it tells itself about what’s happening. It simply existed, sustained itself for a while, and then slowly couldn’t anymore.
Maybe that’s why watching something so tiny and simple wither away hits so strangely hard. We’re not necessarily grieving its suffering we’re recognizing the universality of impermanence. No matter the size or complexity, everything living seems bound by that same fundamental rule.
And maybe that says something interesting about empathy too. We can feel sadness for something that may never have been capable of feeling sadness itself. It doesn’t have to understand its own mortality for us to recognize ourselves in it.
And there’s something deeply human about feeling sad for a creature that may never have been capable of feeling sadness itself.
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u/HamletSammiches 16d ago
I feel genuinely sad now.