The question
What do you believe happens when we die?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring late-stage question in The Guardian Q&A, with materially different answers on publisher-hosted pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I don’t know, and I’m completely OK with not knowing.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 January 2025 source ↗
Oh, man. Well, I hope when we die, it’s the same as before we were born. No one’s really frightened of that enormous, infinite blackness before we were born. No one sits there thinking, “Oh, God, how awful. I was nothing.” So I don’t really see why we should be frightened of that after we die, as long as it is black. I really don’t want to be up there on a cloud playing a harp, meeting some of the people I’ve hated in my life. I can’t imagine a greater nightmare. That would be hell, in fact.
I don’t think we’re meant to know.
We watch over those we love.
When my mother died in my arms, I feel I witnessed her spirit leaving her body, so let’s just wait and see.
The internet going down – but not just for me, for everyone.
Absolutely none. I’ve had three run-ups at Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and I conclude it must be boring because I’ve never finished it.
Every morning when I go into our three-year-old’s room. He’s so happy to see you, it’s a moment of heaven.
My wife, just in case I’ve done something wrong.
To be here in this one moment.
As someone who was kind.
Esther Freud, Frank Bowling, Richard Eyre, Gregory Porter, Nuala McGovern, Nigel Havers
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