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#21
10-14-2007, 08:01 PM
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Re: Scared of death
Caps, I think your post is some form of genius and I've been trying to express something similar for years. The periods of my life where I dwell on this I typically have insomnia.
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#22
10-14-2007, 08:05 PM
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Re: Scared of death
[ QUOTE ]
Albert Einstein The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead. [/ QUOTE ] See, this is ass-backward. The whole point about fearing pain/accidents/injury is that it is because one fears dying.
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#23
10-14-2007, 08:20 PM
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Re: Scared of death
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Albert Einstein The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead. [/ QUOTE ] See, this is ass-backward. The whole point about fearing pain/accidents/injury is that it is because one fears dying. [/ QUOTE ] Which is why it's ironic. [ QUOTE ] You probably saw the same episode of Tales from the Crypt that I did, where Humphrey Bogart gets killed by his woman or something and spends the rest of the existence stuck inside his own corpse, realising that there is no afterlife or end. That [censored] freaked me out. [/ QUOTE ] I have a very vague memory of an episode where someone is narrating at the end that after you die you still have your senses, and you lose them one by one, and the narrator sort of thought touch would be the first to go, but he was mistaken and he realizes such when the autopsy begins. I remember that was fairly traumatic.
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#24
10-14-2007, 08:24 PM
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Re: Scared of death
I have the EXACT same thoughts.
Sometimes I cry from the sheer terror and fear of it, and other times I go for a run until I collapse from exhaustion. I always feel way better after the latter than the former. Sometimes it helps to pet my dog too. The blissful happiness about life and the complete lack of a deeper self consciousness she has, oddly comforts me.
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#27
10-14-2007, 08:44 PM
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Re: Scared of death
[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes I cry from the sheer terror and fear of it, and other times I go for a run until I collapse from exhaustion. I always feel way better after the latter than the former. [/ QUOTE ] What's paradoxical here is that you have to engage in an activity that would, by all means, be considered a manifestation of a psychological death drive to temporarily forget the feelings of dread and anxiety caused by thinking of death. It'd be the same if your response was heavy drinking, drugs drugs drugs, or random one night stand. By trying to obliterate all those thoughts you are actually engaging in precisely what you, at least consciously, claim to fear the most. I've responded to those thoughts by either signing up to everything I possibly can in order to get overkilled, having self-destructive weekends or focusing all my thoughts on an obsessive goal, whether it is finish writing X, get good at poker or get random girl that suits this purpose. Thing is, it's philosophically complex, because all those are expressions of not wanting to "be", which is allegedly the main problem with conceiving death as the non-existence of self. I'm not completely sure yet whether the actual root of this is fear of death or of actually living as the person you think yourself to be.
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#28
10-14-2007, 09:03 PM
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Re: Scared of death
[ QUOTE ]
I have the EXACT same thoughts. Sometimes I cry from the sheer terror and fear of it, and other times I go for a run until I collapse from exhaustion. I always feel way better after the latter than the former. Sometimes it helps to pet my dog too. The blissful happiness about life and the complete lack of a deeper self consciousness she has, oddly comforts me. [/ QUOTE ] I'm pretty much on this page of my life now. I've been going through these same thoughts for the last couple years, having come from a religious background, then realizing that I don't really "believe" it, and coming to terms with all that brings. I enjoy a lot of Buddhist thoughts on this, not the real supernatural stuff, but the very basic concept of appreciating the moment. I find myself trying to be more aware of each instant in and of itself. This also has made me a more humane person I think as well. I tend to look at everyone just having this brief microscopic moment in reality, so if it doesn't hurt me why not do what I can to make theirs a little better. But some nights it just makes me drink.
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#29
10-14-2007, 09:07 PM
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Re: Scared of death
I've heard a quote before...but I can't remember the exact wording or who said it...it was something like...
"I'm not afraid of death. I was dead for a long time before I was born and I wasn't the slightest bit inconvenienced by it." anyone know who said something like this?
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#30
10-14-2007, 10:13 PM
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Re: Scared of death
[ QUOTE ]
I enjoy a lot of Buddhist thoughts on this, not the real supernatural stuff, but the very basic concept of appreciating the moment. I find myself trying to be more aware of each instant in and of itself. [/ QUOTE ] I have been reading this thread and feeling kind of sorry for some of the people that have sheer terror about death. I am not Buddhist and naturally have come to the conclusion to appreciate the moment and be aware of each instant. I can't control certain things in my life such as afterlife or death or whatever entails but I can control each moment. I say this b/c I was afraid of death for a period in my life, for a lot of reasons mentioned in this thread. Then something happened in my life that snapped some perspective into me and made me realize that worrying doesn't really enhance my life in any way (I did my best to exclude a Van Wilder quote there).
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