For those who have found the courage to die, we salute you

More than anything else, I'm afraid of being dead. I'm not religious, so perhaps this dead idea presents a large problem for me than it does for other people who have faith in something, but I believe in a world where there is nothing. And it scares me so much.

The idea of being without consciousness, awareness, thought...I just, I can't grasp that. And occasionally it siezes me, grabs my heart and squeezes. I'm sitting here, back on the East Coast, completely alone, and all I can think of is, one day, I will cease to exist. My mother says it's wonderful, a nice rest, but I can't feel that way.

The world will be moving on without me, writing books and making movies and coming up with whacky ideas like ipods and portable phones. I have no pretensions, I will be only a minor footnote, a name next to a social security number in a long list of records.

I'm not scared of it. I'm terrified.