The inevitability of death (how do you deal with it?)

[Madame_Lawliet]

thanks to denial... I'm immortal.

Don't even joke about that... I know some new-age hippies who actually sincerely believe this, you DON'T want to sound like them. -.-'

Spoiler: He's quoting Futurama

OT: The thing about death for me is that it's way too much of a gamble for me to not be afraid of. I mean depending on who, if anybody, is right about this whole afterlife thing I could wind up any number of places, and I just don't have enough faith one way or another to be apathetic about it. And don't get me started on re-incarnation, that literally is gambling, I could come back wealthy, to great parents, and in a body that I feel comfortable in, or I could have accidentally pissed off one of the Hindu gods, and they'll bring me back as a sea cucumber, or worse, a land cucumber!
And hell, what if the Atheists were right all along! And it just cuts to black for the rest of eternity, that would be the worst of all, you'd get so bored so fast, I think I'd rather be the sea cucumber, man I'd rather be in Hell, atleast that'd be something to do

So basically, I defuse worry and fear with dark humor, that's how I cope with loneliness and gender dysphoria after all.

 

[Eddie the head]

And hell, what if the Atheists were right all along! And it just cuts to black for the rest of eternity, that would be the worst of all, you'd get so bored so fast, I think I'd rather be the sea cucumber, man I'd rather be in Hell, atleast that'd be something to do

I know this is a joke, but this is how I get my shits and giggles. Anyway by that logic where you bored before you where born? Because I certainly wasn't. Death is like that. What you remember form before you where born.

 

[Voodoomancer]

I didn't deal with it, until you reminded me of it.

*goes back into denial*

 

[BakedSardine]

Actual death doesn't bother me - the most stress comes from thinking about how your death will affect your kids, etc. I'm reaching that point in my life where, mostly unaffected by deaths of relatives to this point, in the past 3 years my grandmothers passed away and my uncle (he was 72) just passed from cancer.

The one thing I find comfort in is that when people die, there is a sense of peace about them. My uncle who just passed was diagnosed with cancer about 2 years ago and under went chemo, etc. and after getting metastases to his lungs, he just decided to stop all treatment and enjoy as best he could the last 8 months of life. He went into hospice and my dad and other brother (who flew in from Florida for one day to see him) spent time with him (he still recognized them) last Saturday morning and then he died that afternoon. I couldn't help but think that he knew death was near, got to see his brothers one last time, and then just thought "Well, it's time to let go" and moved on from this life.

I don't really believe that there is nothing after death. The universe is pretty goddamn weird as is, and the fact that something exists at all (such as: the universe) seems to imply that logic and reasoning doesn't apply to everything (or if it does, not in a way we can currently comprehend).

Pretty much my thoughts - I have no idea what lies beyond this life (probably nothing described by man in a text), but the fact that we even exist is just weird. Which is why I find atheists (vs. agnostic, which I identify with) funny - there may not be a "god" in the Biblical sense, but to claim that you know that there is nothing beyond this life is just silly.

 

[Tactical Pause]

Looks like it's time for me to bring up my belief on the matter, which is almost universally considered to be crazy, but is still right.

Viewing death as inevitable is something our society does to cope with it. It's inevitable right now, so it'll always be like that, right? Wrong. We need to stop acting like death is some unstoppable force, and start treating it like the medical problem it is. We didn't get to the moon by saying, "Man, that's so high up. Oh well, I guess we'll never get there," and then just giving up.

Right now, hardly any respectable scientists work on immortality because it seems 'too high up'. If people continue treating death as something that will always be inevitable, it will always remain that way, because nobody thought to question it, to challenge its authority over our existence. We as a society need to stop treating it as something special, and start researching it the way we would any other terminal illness. After all, cancer's bad, but death-by-aging has a 100% fatality rate.

So yeah, that's how I view 'the inevitability of death'. Take from it what you will.

 

[Grimh]

I had a huge crisis of mortality when I was eleven I think? Somewhere around there.
I watched that movie Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams and the reality of our own fleeting mortality and the inevitable fate of growing old an dying hit me like a truck.
It made me very depressed and I started just crying out of nowhere several times and was terrified.
I eventually moved past it though.

If I go through life worrying about death, I'll forget to live.

That said, wouldn't mind me some of that immortality though.

captcha: good riddance
Oh gee, thanks captcha.

 

[Eddie the head]

Pretty much my thoughts - I have no idea what lies beyond this life (probably nothing described by man in a text), but the fact that we even exist is just weird. Which is why I find atheists (vs. agnostic, which I identify with) funny - there may not be a "god" in the Biblical sense, but to claim that you know that there is nothing beyond this life is just silly.

Just using the term "Atheist." Atheist's don't believe that. Atheism is a lace of belief in god or gods. It's not a claim of knowledge of any sort. There are Buddhist atheists.

Furthermore I don't think I fallow; the universe exists so there is no logic and reason? Why? Because "things are weird?" That statement is accurate enough to be true, but vague enough to mean whatever you want it to.

Alright whatever point is Atheist's aren't making that claim, that's kind of a strawman.

 

[Sansha]

A woman a few blocks down from where I used to live slipped on black ice and broke her neck on her wrought iron fence.

A cyclist five minutes drive from here was brained when a garbage truck ran through a roundabout.

A building can have a brick or window fall out and smash you on the head. A tree can fall on you. You can simply stumble and crack your skull open on the ground.

Hell, your brain or heart can suddenly decide "Nah." and just shut off.

Death can come for you at any second of any day or night. Only have of anyone ever born made it to old age. Look at your best friend; one of you will die from unnatural causes.

It's completely pointless, illogical and stupid to dwell on your inevitable demise. It makes you forget to stop living in the meantime.

Each human is utterly insignificant, and each of us will have our name spoken for the last time. The sooner you realize that, and that it really doesn't matter, the happier you'll be.

 

[Flatfrog]

Hey everyone, I've been doing some thinking as of late. Well, overthinking, more like. And I realized the gravity of the fact that we're all going to die some day, and our short lifespans don't exactly help matters.
So needless to say, I'm terrified. Terrified at the prospect of tipping over into the great beyond, the great unknown, the inevitable.

Two things really help me with this issue. The first is obvious and often pointed out, which is that no one seems bothered by the idea that there was a time before they existed, so why should there be such a big deal about a time afterwards?

The other is more subtle and takes a bit more explaining. Basically it hinges on the notion that all of us are able to create a model of other people's minds in our heads. If I want to know how my wife would feel about something, it's easy, I just boot up the Virtual Catherine in my head and ask her.

Obviously these virtual persons are imperfect, but they can be pretty good. Every writer knows the experience of characters that "think for themselves", and it's certainly true that the model of my wife in my head thinks a lot more like her than I do. So in a small way, these imperfect models are fragments of a kind of "exosoul" of the people we know and care about.

When we die, those fragments don't just disappear. And I like to think that every time I boot up a version of my mother, who died a few years ago, in a small way she is partially alive again in my mind - or at least someone who thinks a lot like her. So that's a kind of afterlife, not in any religious sense but in a practical one. It doesn't last for long, it gradually dissipates as the models degrade or their carriers die in their turn, but in the meantime, like a person's physical ashes can fertilize soil, their mental ashes can fertilize other minds and live on as memetic nutrients.

I always liked Christopher Hitchens' line, though: "It's not like being told 'the party's over', it's being told 'the party's still going on, but you have to leave'". That's my main feeling about death - not fear, but disappointment that interesting stuff will be going on and I won't be around to see it.

 

[BakedSardine]

Just using the term "Atheist." Atheist's don't believe that. Atheism is a lace of belief in god or gods. It's not a claim of knowledge of any sort. There are Buddhist atheists.

Furthermore I don't think I fallow; the universe exists so there is no logic and reason? Why? Because "things are weird?" That statement is accurate enough to be true, but vague enough to mean whatever you want it to.

Alright whatever point is Atheist's are't making that claim, that's kind of a strawman.

Atheism, by definition, is the doctrine or belief that there is no god. I agree that there are Buddhist Atheists, but Buddhism is based on enlightenment, which is a realization of spiritual or religious understanding - in a sense you could say that enlightenment is attaining a "god like" state, though it is not the same as believing in a god.

 

[Tactical Pause]

Pretty much my thoughts - I have no idea what lies beyond this life (probably nothing described by man in a text), but the fact that we even exist is just weird. Which is why I find atheists (vs. agnostic, which I identify with) funny - there may not be a "god" in the Biblical sense, but to claim that you know that there is nothing beyond this life is just silly.

I just trust the evidence given to me. So far, I have seen no evidence of any sort of immortal 'soul' or what have you. Instead, the evidence pretty clearly points to us being biological machines. We're very complex and awesome machines, but machines nonetheless. I'm about 99.9% positive that our physical brain is everything that makes us who we are. Once that brain ceases to function, I see no reason to believe that we would do anything other than ceasing to exist entirely.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm just trying to explain why I have my "funny" beliefs.

 

[Gardenia]

In the words of Freddie Mercury: "Who wants to live forever?"
I certainly know I don't. All I can hope for is that death is quick, painless and unexpected.

A friend who worked with elderly people (going to their homes and checking up on them, helping them with stuff) told me about an old man she discovered dead once. He was sitting in a chair, stretched out over a breakfast table. A massive aneurysm had freed him from his mortal coils. He was stretching for the juice, still clutching a sandwich. He probably had no idea that he was going to die, and probably didn't even have the time to become aware of his impending expiry before he was gone. I wish to go the same way.

TL;DR: Old, unexpected, quick and painless.

 

[Flatfrog]

Just using the term "Atheist." Atheist's don't believe that. Atheism is a lace of belief in god or gods. It's not a claim of knowledge of any sort.

Atheism, by definition, is the doctrine or belief that there is no god.

Just as Afairyism is the 'doctrine' that there are no fairies.

Absence of belief is not in itself a belief.

 

[joshuaayt]

When I was a kid- like, from 7ish onwards, I guess- I was terrified of dying. I'd lie in bed just trying to come to grips with the fact that one day I wouldn't be there, and it just wasn't something I could process. I wanted to become a scientist, maybe one day cure old age, keep myself alive forever.

One thought that helped me a lot is that we're all on the same boat. People around me I looked up to all had the same endpoint, and they didn't seem to mind, so maybe it wasn't that bad? That's how I thought about it, even if it was just a way of deluding myself.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Snip

Reading your post was like a timewarp for me, it looked exactly like something I could/would have written 7 years ago (I'm 26). It turned out that my parents hadn't prepared me for being an adult, and I had developed a panic/anxiety disorder due to that and other (worse) factors. I would have panic attacks over being in public social situations, but the number one anxiety that haunted me and wouldn't let me leave the house was confronting the reality that one day I would be gone and everything would be black.

I won't lie and say there's an easy answer. Seeing a therapist didn't help (he talked of reincarnation and kind of shrugged off that aspect of my problems, like he didn't want to be reminded of his own mortality). I eventually found a better professional who prescribed me anti-anxiety medication and they saved my life. I've since left the house, got married, had a child, and built things in my life that I can care for and nurture.

I know that the whole thing seems irrational, but that's what makes it a disorder. You probably had a dog or a goldfish die when you were younger, and accepted death. Maybe you've been to a relative's funeral, and helped yourself in accepting death. But sometimes our perspective can change and we look at things like death in a different light.

If panic attacks are preventing you from living a quality life, please seek help for them. The worst thing that can happen is having a fear of death that prevents you from actually living a life while you're here. You don't want to be on your deathbed saying "well at least I've put a ton of thought into this, and sufficiently worried about it!". Try to consider this re-evaluation of your mortality as an opportunity to do more things in life that bring you joy and make a life well lived. A ton of people don't think for 1 nanosecond about this unless they're in mortal danger, so you have an opportunity to make changes at this point to make the life you have better.

For me, it was donating to charity, doing some volunteering here and there, pursuing my music and writing with much more effort, and having/loving my wife and daughter and building a family. I'm driven now by a desire to do things for others so great that hopefully people won't have to work and stretch to say positive things about me when I'm gone. Essentially, giving to the world can be much more rewarding than taking or receiving from it, but if panic and anxiety is preventing you from even basic living, you'll be so glad you got rid of those first.

A lot longer than I expected, but you reminded me of a point in my life where all I did was ponder mortality to the point where I was being killed by the concept. I hope that you can use this as an opportunity to see what kind of life you want while you're here, and that you don't suffer with panic for long, because it's no fun. Take care, and feel free to PM me if you want to talk about anything at all.

 

[Gauntlets28]

thanks to denial... I'm immortal.

Another immortal, huh? Amazing what the power of denial can do, isn't it? Of course...there can be only ONE!

 

[Someone Depressing]

I got over the "no matter what I do, who I'll become, or how I live my life, I will die. And after death, there is simply nothingness; not even darkness, colour, or even nothingness."-fact when I was about 10.

I was a grim child.

Nowadays, I wouldn't really mind if I died all that much. Honestly, I'm just kind of like that: I can't even tell myself if it's just that I'm not motivated enough to care, or I honestly wouldn't mind all that much. So what? it'll happen. It's happened to, what, about 4 or so billion people before me in just recorded history alone. Fuck, I might even be the 5 billionth exactly. And then I'd feel special. That is, if I wasn't so dead.

 

[Ratty]

As you might have guessed, I'm not a religious person, it's never been in my nature, and now I'm kind of cursing that fact, because if anything, even if the afterlife exists or not, it's safe to say that religion provides a lot of comfort for people. I've considered taking up a religion just to have something to believe in, but that would just be very hollow, and I'm not sure I would believe in it.

So that's my piece, any help/insights would be greatly appreciated.
How about you? How do you deal with this fact?

Hey, don't sell the non-religious viewpoint short. Existence doesn't last long, that sucks, but you can still make the best of it. Try to enjoy life and make others and yourself happy. Life doesn't have any greater meaning or purpose than the one we choose to give it. If you do something wrong, you have to try to get forgiveness from those you have wronged and eventually try to forgive yourself, there's no "Forgive me Lord" get out of guilt free card. The realization of these facts brings with it a great sense of both responsibility and liberation. Treasure the time you spend with the people and things you love, because you may never get another chance.

At the end of the day, when you no longer exist, it's not like it's going to bother you.

In the immortal (lol) words of Eric Idle "You know you come from nothing you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!"

 

[Eddie the head]

Atheism, by definition, is the doctrine or belief that there is no god. .

No it's not. That's just flat out wrong. Atheism is a belief like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

 

[The Event]

If you're not religious but still want to be immortal, there's only really one other option at the moment
http://www.alcor.org/