Confronting mortality..

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Challenger78, Jul 13, 2009.

  1. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    How did you come to terms with your own mortality, and the tattered remains of dreams or legacies gone by ?
     
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  3. baftan ******* Valued Senior Member

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    I did not come to terms with mortality. I can not believe in anything that aims to relax our brains with the idea that death is not important.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2009
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  5. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

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    And you accuse me of having existential crises?

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    Coming to terms with my own mortality? I don't think I have.
    Tattered remains of dreams? Mostly by the simple expedient of those remains fading into obscurity.
    E.g. Once I had a burning ambition to be X, 20 years later (not having become X) I can barely remember why the thing even interested me.

    This too shall pass
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2009
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  7. Varda The Bug Lady Valued Senior Member

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    I'm having a quarter life crisis right now.
     
  8. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    Challenger, aren't you eighteen or so? Why would you be thinking of this sort of thing at your age? You'll be thinking about this sort of thing all too much when in your forties (trust me), no need to rush it.
     
  9. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

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    Tch, kids these days.
    Always in a hurry to grow up.

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  10. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    It actually should be easy for most anyone ....if their parents don't hide the truth from them. The first time a kid sees something dead should be his/her first approach to their own mortality. It just grows from there.

    How can anyone, except a baby, look at a dead animal or even a person at a funeral, and not confront their own mortality?

    Yeah, sure, ...okay.

    Baron Max
     
  11. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Consider the most horrible fantasy that you can, for the afterlife.

    For each person it could be different. It could be nothingness...the same as it was before your were born. It could be something someone told you, like some ancient angry Mesopotamian Deity chucking you on a lake of fire. It could be indeed something considered "bliss"...playing a harp at your master, the Almighty's feet. And it could be even a nasty oblivion, of whatever kind of experience the slow decay of particles is, over the strange, vast, eons of time.

    Whatever it is, consider this: There is nothing, NOTHING you can do to escape it. Not even the wildest imaginations of science fiction can escape the ultimate, equalizing reality that NOTHING lasts forever. Nothing is probably ever created equally, but perhaps they all die equally.

     
  12. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    So what gives us meaning ? Knowing that in death we are all equal should we conquer all others in life ?
     
  13. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    I skipped my childhood.. It was left behind at a transit terminal somewhere.
     
  14. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    No one is going to be able to tell you how to find meaning in life. You actually got to figure it out yourself. Do you own homework for once.

    If you actually thought about it for a long period of time, you would know your offhand conclusion of conquering everyone is probably a waste of time in the end. Again, nothing lasts forever. The best thing you can do with "life" is be a builder or make way for building on it and not it's destroyer. An addition and not a subtraction.
     
  15. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I've already had 3 heart attacks ands one mild stroke as well as many other medical problems so all I do is just do whatever it is I do everyday to get by. I really do not dwell upon it much any longer, what happens ...happens, nothing I can do but accept life as it hits me.

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  16. justwonderingjoe Gosh,the weather is nice today Registered Senior Member

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    Watching my husband take his last breath, dying and realizing "HE IS NOT COMING BACK".

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    I realized NOTHING can stop death. No matter how much I prayed, screamed, yelled, cried, bargained, or denied.

    Going through that, forced me to get my head out of the clouds, grow up and accept the reality. I too will die some day.

    If you really want your dreams to come true, get off your butt and do them now, cause tomorrow may never come.
    (I didn't mean specifically you Challenger, I meant in general)
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2009
  17. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think its really something you need to 'come to terms with' unless you are sick or very old. You could always have a fatal accident at the age of 20 or something but then you wouldn't really have time for much musing over life and death. I have never thought I would live forever and I don't think there was this watershed moment where I considered the big D, it always seemed to me that I have always been here and since I cannot fathom the moment I will not be here, as even the consideration of it is driven by my conscious awareness, once I am not here it won't really be anything of my concern. I do think of things in terms of living wills as far as property but not my actual exit as its unfathomable.
     
  18. chris4355 Registered Senior Member

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    I'm 22, I used to worry about it all the time in my teen years. I grew out of it and realized whatever happens happens.

    but sometimes the thought comes back and bugs me for an hour or two. theres nothing you can do about it really, its just kinda there.
     
  19. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    I really envy you.
     
  20. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    I disagree. I think it's good to have your head wrapped around it as best as you can. We are not animals to act out the survival instinct only when it hits us, this is the kind of thing that causes ugly situations like old men jumping on the life rafts on the Titanic. Or stories of spouses drowning each other as they frantically push each other down, because they can't swim.

    People do all kinds of very irrational things when you let that survival instinct to completely override all reason. You know like picking up religion at age 65+, suddenly.
     
  21. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    There is nothing to disagree with. I don't think there is anything to come to terms with, nothing to 'wrap ones head around'. How can you 'wrap your head' around what you don't know and can have no knowledge of? It has nothing to do with survival instinct or anything else. All my understanding of my own death is predicated on my own consciousness and awareness, in other words the idea is based on the condition of my awareness. Death is death, I think wondering about how we live is more pertinent than how we die and what happens in said death. If we float away as angels or its just end of story blackout it still doesn't make a difference until you are actually 'there'. How could the thought of ones death possibly be of any use at all save staving off fear? Fear of the unknown.
     
  22. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    to put in term which won't derail the thread..

    a half of the way i deal with it is a quote i once came by:

    "if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one"


    off topic:
    challenger this just came to me, do yo play unreal tournament?
     
  23. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    7,536
    Why ?
    Why not a million small ones?

    Nope, But I've played various games afterwards. I was introduced to gaming after the quake age.
     

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