Death and dying. Parents, friends, yourself. What are your experiences?

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Source, do you have one?

 

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on another site i frequent a person that calls himself phat the ninja kat recently died. i didn't know him personally, but know many who did. watching as the community go from loving out pour into frustration, and into gradual acknowledgement over the last several days, has been some what depressing in that the process has seemingly caused people to dump on each other rather harshly.

 

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Its a nice thought only if it was a good book.

I don't think we ever really talk about death. As Wittgenstein pointed out we don't experience death, what we experience is the death of others and anything else we think on the the actual passing event is merely speculation and or wishful thinking. We can only speak of how we can treat the passing unto death ie. how we feel affected by someone else's dying or how we feel about ourselves when our life is threatened. Our dread of dying has to do with disturbing associations such as being buried in a box, worries about 'what comes next' even if its the dread of 'nothingness' or zero consciousness. Our heads are filled with ugly images of decaying bodies bloated with maggots. We could say don't worry about the decay because there is no consciousness there but it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter because as long as our thinking mechanism is involved we have a false sense of that decay somehow happening to us and that fills one with dread even if we know on some level that there will be no consciousness there. Other than that we know nothing of the death experience. If anyone tells you that they've had a near death experience its still not knowledge of death itself.

 

In reply to stoniphi #20 post...I really...really, seriously liked your "post" (if you are faking, you're VERY good at it)

I grew up with a monster of a mother (think "Mommie Dearest", only worse...MANY "wire hanger" episodes for myself and my sister) I wanted nothing more than to

go to sleep and not wake up since the age of six or so. I never knew my "real" father as a father, I met him briefly twice as a kid. My step-father was neither abusive nor

interested in me. (just baggage that came with the marriage)

The end result of my childhood is a completely asocial adult who cannot form any sort of meaningful relationship with others. I suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, as well

as crippling "functional" depression...the last time I was with a woman, I was 22. I am now 60. I am VERY aware of my "personality" defects, and yet I have never been

able conquer any of them...when I look at myself, I am filled with loathing and disgust for how little I have done with my life! The things I should, and could have done,

I did not do. I could have taught thousands of kids to read! I could have shown them the joy of a good book, a well-told story!

I did nothing that made ANY significant difference to the life of another...you cannot imagine how much it hurts me to think of it.

(Oh yes...I made many life-saving interventions as an EMT. I NEVER "lost" a patient in my care...but not because I cared for them that much on a personal level. No, it

was because I hate to lose AT ANYTHING. If I lost someone...it would mean my skills were too weak, and that I cannot tolerate!)

I have a fearsome intellect that has never given me a moment of happiness...in fact, most of my teachers could not stand me. As a child, I was always the "little

smart ass" or the "little know-it-all" who must surely be cheating in some hidden fashion. (I found by the time I was thirty I am something of an auto-didactic polymath)

You would think "being smart" is a good thing, yes? NO...it is more of a curse than anything else. Intellect without the companionship of will and ambition and the

desire to use them in a constructive manner are worthless artifacts. No one knows this better than me.

I read you have a family...how I envy you! These are really the only things in life that matter, and they are something I will never have.

You may wonder...have I never known any real feelings? Have I never felt love for another? The answer is YES.

When I met Her, I was already 37, and had never had a "steady girlfriend". Ever. (you may well think I suffer from a poorly developed libido, or some sort of sexual

identity problem. No. Nor am I "too shy" or intimidated to ask a girl "out". I was just not "comfortable" with the idea of being close to anyone...in the same manner as a

dog that might accept food from a stranger, but is "alert" at the same moment, wary of any false move) As well as you must surely know dogs, then you know what I

mean...for me it is "all or nothing". And then I met Her, and it was "all".

Can you imagine it! How feels to be completely in love with someone, so that you can accept any fault, any knock-down drag-out fight, any mistake...and forgive because

you love that person utterly, and anything she does it's okay because she is human, and a girl/woman, and you need to be the one she can always come Home to...have

you ever felt this as sure and certain as life and death itself? I have...and still do, for Her.

I have not seen her in nineteen years now. And I grieve and weep for what might have been...what should have been.

I think she sensed in me some flaw, some defect that would break Her heart...and she dared not to risk it. It would be too much hurt for Her.

My fondest wish is that she has found love with a man who loves Her as I do.

Don't feel too sad for me...most people have never had the sheer joy in their deepest heart that I found with Her, and I treasure it.

As you know, in the land of memory, the time is always "now"...I re-live my memories with Her, and it comforts my heart.

It is my intent, should I feel my body betraying me, or my mind begins to fail...to go Home to my beloved desert southwest, to be near where I met Her, and place the

barrel of a large caliber pistol in my mouth...you can guess the rest. I think this will stop the life-long hurt that is always with me, my unwanted companion.

I hope my Lab will be there, gone all these years, to jump up on me with his incredibly scratchy feet and welcome me with his soft dog kiss, and tell me of adventures

while he waited for me...for he came to me with love, and will come back from death itself to comfort me, because he will know it in his heart that I want him to "come,

lets go chase some critters and go see things and smell 'em ", and NOTHING can stop him.

We can fade into nothing together, each content in our hearts that I still love him...and he still loves me.


(Thanks for reading)

 

I am glad that you liked what I said, Gerry.

We all lie, especially to ourselves, but I generally do not. I have no reason, to the contrary - if one is always honest one never has to remember what they previously said. They can just repeat the truth. Additionally, there is no profit in being untruthful on this topic, at least to my perceptions.

I have a wife and a son, as well as the most wonderful American Field Yellow Labrador retriever a guy could ask to share his life with. Also a fine career, good friends and many entertaining interests.

I am 63 years old, live near Detroit and am a (neither formal or traditional) Buddhist. I am here, now. I focus outward. The past is over and done with, though I remember what has gone before and the lessons I have learned from that. I plan/prepare for the future, but I do not live there. When I am dead, my son will have my corpse cremated, my ashes mixed with those of my dear departed canine companions (my Lab's predecessors ashes are on the shelf in my home office right here within my reach) and he will then scatter our remains along one of our favourite trails.

I do not believe in an afterlife of any kind (Occam's Razor) so I take my joy in the here and now.

My mother beat me to a pulp often, broke my nose twice before I turned 14, abused me in every way she could think of as long as she could. Dad helped a lot by enabling her and backing her up when she attacked me. While she (for her own good) apologized to me when I was in my mid - twenties, dad could never face it, could never even acknowledge she had abused me. Probably did not want to carry more guilt. :shrug:

I survived. They called me stupid, so I excelled - especially in fields they did/could not, like mathematics and martial arts. I raised my son without harming or abusing him. The family tradition of abuse ended with me in my house, though my married brothers did things differently.

I took my pain and made it strength. I treat others well. While I no longer have any contact with my siblings, I have many friends who constitute an extended family, relationships based on sharing and common interests rather than genetics. I have moved on, my birth family are in the past, just people I once knew and sometimes remember. Dust in the wind.

 

In reply to stoniphi #45...thanks for the post.

Although I am an extremely sorry mess on a personal level, no one would be aware of it unless I told them. None of my symptoms are manifested in a manner that would

be obvious to a casual observer, and my general outlook on life is actually good!

So...you're a Detroit boy? Guess what?! I spent most of my childhood in Dearborn! 22356 Columbia! (that address is gone for years now) You remember Oxford Elementary

school? Off of Telegraph? I went there...also Whitmore Bolles. (small world, ain't it?)


I wish I had a bag of "sliders" right now...and some authentic "pasties"!!! (some things never fade...I can smell those tiny burgers!)

Do you remember Cobo Hall? I used to sneak in there and watch all the performers rehearse...The Temps...4 Tops...The Supremes...MC5...even the Stones! (they were the

openers for Herman's Hermits! The Stones were second to the Hermits! (of course, the Hermits had 2 hit singles, and the "Rollin' Stones" had no top-tens yet)

Man...those are some memories! Like heaven for a "rocker" like myself...remember "mods" and "rockers"? I remember 1965...what a time for music!!!!

1440 WCHB...soul radio!...and CKLW...the Motor City!!!

True enough, all that is past. But what a past it was! I STILL love it.

(I actually saw and heard JFK speak in Ann Arbor...my aunt was a supporter, and took me with her to the "rally". Yes, I was 6 going on 7, but still, what an event that

was...it was one of those things of where you could almost feel the Earth move every time he spoke...such power he had!)

Yes, I have many "good" memories...but the "bad" ones always seek to poison them, to blot them out.


P.S., something has gone haywire with my Google account. It seems as if it's fighting with competing search-engines like Bing and Explorer...I get a lot of beeping and

"fade-outs" to other sites in the middle of moving the cursor! WTH?? I never had a computer til 2013, and have had to "learn the hard way" from youtube on how to

do ANYTHING! This is why paragraphs are "skipping" (I think) I still have no idea how to "cut and paste" and other neat tricks, so please forgive mistakes in sentence

structure.



(Thanks for reading!)

 

Yes, not everyone enjoys life. That’s what makes life seem like an emergency to atheists. We know that it falls to us to make the world a better place.

Let me ask you something, Mrs. Lucy.

How good are we at predicting future events? Even if we accept that death will not exist for us, that it exist only for the living, will the fear of losing control over future outcomes still remain? Death itself may not be the problem. Life may be the problem and the separation thereof. What will happen to them when I’m gone? Do you think we fear the future, the loss of control, the uncertainty?

Perhaps, this, too, is a cognitive bias. We can’t even predict how we will feel about future events. How then could we ever even hope to predict how someone else will feel? We could never determine the intensity or the duration of their emotional response. We forget to take into account our own ability to cope and overcome emotional events. So what make us think that we can predict the impact of our death?

 

I'm not sure if we can say solely that atheists see life as an emergency from an existential point of view. I would think it more likely that the religious see it as an emergency since their entire existence depends on their performance in this life.

I'm not sure if I properly understand your question. We may be lousy at predicting events but we do know that death awaits us all, its the living who contemplates this death and the living who uses their imagination to try and inform themselves of what this death may be like but its not possible. Its not possible to know death through the instrument of thought since death is beyond that. I don't think anyone can know the impact of their death, its a concern especially if one has young children or a spouse but at the point of death its no longer any of our business, its the business of the living not that of the dying at the point of death.

 

Painting with a very broad brush here, aren't we? My life is not an emergency and it doesn't seem like it either.

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That would be the contrary case that proves your hypothesis false.

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Floyd at Cobo, Zappa at Ford, Cream at the Olympia, Zeppelin at the Grande and Floyd again at East Town Theater. Many others as well.

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Then there was that bowl of hot pepper rings at the Onion Roll Deli on Woodward.....

 

In reply to stoniphi #49...Oh, I'm so jealous! You saw Floyd at Cobo!

In the words of "Ten Years After"..."life is funny...bees make honey..."


(by the way, WTH has happened to Ted Nugent? I can remember when he was on his way to becoming another guitar-god...that boy could rip when he was in the

mood...now he makes me seem "normal", even to me!!! I know, a lot of his crap is being geared toward the "white trash" demographic where there is money to be had, but

even so...making public slurs against the President???)


Also...to change gears.

I now live (12yrs.) in S. Illinois, in Hardin County...a version of Hell worthy of Dante'.

The people here, for the most part, frighten me. On the surface, things seem calm and placid, a place of genteel decay...but underneath this surface aspect lies a state

of mindless rage and hate against ANYONE who is not part of the "Southern" lifestyle. I never would have believed such a thing would be possible in 2014 America.

Think "Deliverance"...and you are "on the money". (Nugent would be at "home" here)

The stories I could tell you!!! You would NEVER believe any of it!!! "Madness as a way of Life".


This place WORSHIPS DEATH!!!

 

Nice! The pre-Atom Heart Mother tour (April 1970).

There's no proper boot for that show, but this one from the Fillmore West will have to do--and it's (one of the few from that period) soundboard. Probably the best tour and set-list IMHO, though I'd only just been born so I missed it.

You didn't happen to see Van Der Graaf Generator at the Beacon in '76, eh? I've got a recording of that.

I've played the Magic Stick (smaller room) and some other dumps in Detroit, but the Beacon would be nice.

 

Didn't see VDG, sorry...

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Zappa's show sold so few tickets that he had us folks up in the cheap balcony seats come downstairs and sit in the second row, dead center. That was his "200 Motels" tour - great show!

Floyd was Piper at the Gates of Dawn tour, Umma Gumma tour, Atom Heart Mother and the Dark Side of the Moon tour. Also saw Led Zeppelin when they weren't known, as the warm up band for 3 Dog Night at the Grande Ballroom . Opened with "Communications Breakdown" and that was the show.

Blue Cheer at the Grande was the loudest, with 36 double stacked Marshalls in a semi - circle on stage. (I stuffed toilet paper in my ears as soon as I heard how loud they were.)

I am still here, though I no longer attend public performances.

 

My apologies, I was confusing Eastown with the Beacon (in NYC)--VDGG only played the one U.S. show in '76, and a handful in Canada, prior to 2006.

Yeah, in the early 70's (pre-74/75) it seems the more proggy/experimental acts--Genesis w/ Gabriel, Crimson, et al--seldom drew much of a crowd; hence the rather high quality of the recordings from the era, given the limitations for portable recording devices.

Always having been more an Anglo- and Euro-phile, I was brought to Zappa by way of Henry Cow--their uncompromising dodecaphonic music, combined with their uncompromising Marxist politics pretty much doomed them to failure both in the U.S. and back home (the U.K.). Only the Continentals were supportive.

So then you experienced Richard Wright's Azimuth Coordinator--a device with two rather large and cumbersome joysticks for panning his organs and sound effects all throughout the theater, quadrophonic style. While placing a couple of potentiometers at 90 degrees to one another, throwing in some bearings and a couple of gears, and shoving a stick in it may seem like nothing to we present-day sophisticates, it was pretty cool back in the day I'd imagine.


P.S. Oh, and I am in full agreement with your post at #20 BTW, right down to the shitty, abusive parents.

 

I am naive, Fraggle, is that what you’re saying? You don’t think that a gain in understanding will yield a greater responsibility for what we have been, are, and will become? If atheists are right and there is only one world, one life, then it is us that hold the keys to heaven and hell. I’m not alone in feeling this way. Without eternity there is a sense of urgency, is there not?

[video=youtube_share;S51JNrV9LeI]http://youtu.be/S51JNrV9LeI[/video]

 

At the risk of being rather unoriginal, could you be more vague? :shrug:

 

In reply to parmalee and stoniphi...best show ever? Live? "Shakey" playing "Cinnamon Girl" in Berlin...or damn near anywhere else he decides to play. (I think his performances will kill him

soon, he does not know how to "back off", and the older he gets, the more he "pulls the stops out") I think Neil is in a state of denial with life...he uses music to "counter" all of the worst aspects

of the unfairness of everyday existence. This is the "denial"...as in "I'm gonna' kick life in the ass with this Fender! I can push you back with a good enough chord!"


(you would not usually think of Neil Young and Claude Debussy in the same context...and yet I hear chord structures that are identical, the "phrasing" of a single note as it transitions

from one "minor" to another, such as "Clair de Lune" compared with "Harvest Moon") Both involve loss and regret...and that beauty will endure over ugliness.)


(Thanks for reading!)

 

It would have been nice to see Neil Young in the 70's. Unfortunately, by my time he was playing mostly sizable venues: I have no desire to see anything in a place with a capacity of a more than three or four thousand. In fact, my experiences are mostly in "venues" holding between 100 and 800/1000 at the most.

I've played for roughly 1500 or so a few times and did not enjoy it one bit--for performing, my preferred audience science is between 20 and 300.

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Berlin, eh? German audiences--especially in Berlin--can be rough (loud, raucous, critical at inappropriate moments). Wuerzburg is more my style: quiet.

I can hear Debussy, or even Chopin, in early Young--up to perhaps Zuma. The flourishes are far more minimal with Young, which I prefer (think Satie), but the chord progressions and modes are very Impressionistic. Definitely a refreshing change from my more usual listening choices, which tend to be more Messiaen, Ligeti, Berio, and Berg derived.

 

In reply to parmalee, re: Life/Death/Music.

I think Young would also like a smaller venue...what artist(s) wouldn't? (even the Beatles liked it "close and tight") I'm sure it's more the money factor than anything else...once you get rich, and

others depend on you touring for an income...it would be hard to say "no" to a gate of 20k. or more.


In relation to this, I find it odd how many people find solace in music. (me too) It seems have a "direct route" to centers of the mind which, as yet, are poorly understood, with regard to

their mechanisms of action. An acoustic stimulus may produce a wide range of emotive dissonance or a feeling of calm...while a visual stimulus usually provokes only "interest" or a

"flight or fight" response...I wonder why this is? Perhaps because hearing is more "immediate", an actual presence of sensation?

Perhaps hearing is more of "help" factor with regard to survival (yours ears still "hear", awake or asleep...and your mind can discern even tiny variations from the "norm" of background sounds)

It seems sound, especially music, has far more impact than it has been given credit for...The Beatles did more to change the World with music than virtually any image(s)!

(the only "strong" visual image that comes to mind is the "swastika banner"...the shape/color combinations seem to provoke a strong internal response, even with persons who are not

familiar with it's history!)


(Thanks for reading...Cheers!)