It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.

We don't actually fear death, we fear that no one will notice our absence, that we will disappear without a trace.

A big fear of mine is that I will die before the gender professionals acknowledge that someone like me exists, and then I really won't exist to prove them wrong.

And if no one sees you, are you really there at all?

What could be worse? Dying, and not being missed.

I saw a girl complaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable... Now I have perfect understanding. I have already experienced the worst. After this, there is no worse possible thing.

Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn't something to be afraid of, it's something to be terrified of.

You are afraid to die; what! are you alive now?

I live in fear of being alive.

I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens

i am invisible understand, simply because people refuse to see me

What’s it gonna be like, dying? To go to sleep and never, never, never wake up.

Well, a lot of things it’s not gonna be like. It’s not going to be like being buried alive. It’s not going to be like being in the darkness forever.

I tell you what — it’s going to be as if you never had existed at all. Not only you, but everything else as well. That just there was never anything, there’s no one to regret it — and there’s no problem.

Well, think about that for a while — it’s kind of a weird feeling when you really think about it, when you really imagine.

[The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ]

Most of us are afraid of dying. But sometimes this fear begs the question: To protect what exactly? For a lot of people the answer is: hours of television, gossiping, gorging, wasting potential, reporting to a boring job, and on and on and on. Except, in the strictest sense, is this actually a life? Is this worth gripping so tightly and being afraid of losing? It doesn’t sound like it.

"<i>There was once an invisible man who had grown tired of being unseen. It was not that he was <b>actually</b> invisible. It was that people had become used to not seeing him.

And if no one sees you, are you really there at all?"</i>