Assuming you will be able to anticipate the moment of your death by a few minutes, what do you think will be your final thought on the matter of your life? Will you be trying to connect with a present loved one? Will you be wondering whether it was all worth it? Will you be terrified at what is coming next? What will be your dying thought, if you should be so lucky as to have time for one?
No point in looking back, in my view. Just do whatever I can to be at peace with the situation. No point in fear, regret, anguish etc. My last thought I'd like to think would be a big thank you to everyone who helped me be me.
I would use the opportunity to contemplate what substance there is to the form of "me". I might question it in some respects, seeing it is entirely dependent on memories of my past. I might affirm it in other respects, establishing my existence on the very act of doubting and so thinking about it. (See Descartes) The revery would be appropriate to that moment. Where I butt up against the black infinite void of nothingness. Do I exist? Or was it all just an illusion?
Oh, I see what you're pointing at now. That's going to make an awful big crater between here and Grand Forks.
Don't know until I reach that bridge. The three deaths I witnessed, all were unconscious. Judging from past experience, most deaths are a slow process, so there seems to be plenty of time for contemplation.
I've had decades to contemplate all the empty philosophy I can stomach. I'm not going to waste my last minutes trying to figure anything out. I'd probably be watching the clock: "Four... three... two... one... Now!"
Okay..I've reconsidered. The line from The Bucket List by Morgan Freeman comes to mind: "Just close your eyes, and let the waters take you home."
It would be a state of horror and terror as I desperately struggle in vain to keep conscious, to keep the flame from going out....forever
My mother died of a burst aneurysm. My sister-in-law (who is a nurse) said that she was dead before she hit the floor. Apparently no thought, nor struggle. ......... To die, to sleep-- To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.
