[Monkeydust]

It always strikes me that people, not just on this board but everywhere, have an obsession with death, the fear of it, denial of it, avoidance of it, most things about it generally. In the very least, people will go to any lengths they can to avoid having their time cut short.

I've never understood this, at least not in the last 4 or 5 years (I'm only 18). I'm not DP'ed or even depressed right now. I feel pretty good. And yet still I have this lingering apathy towards the whole issue. I'm really neither too scared, nor too bothered, about dying. For example, a number of my friends won't go on London trains for fear of a terrorist attack and their possible death in it. I'm no less wary of such an attack happening, but I travel nonetheless because I somehow wouldn't be bothered if I died in it.

This isn't a depressive rant at all. I'm just trying to get across how I feel, and always have felt, on the issue of death. I just have a pretty casual, uncaring attitude towards it. Is there anyone who feels the same way? Anyone who isn't really at all scared or fussed about the issue of death? I've always felt very alone on this issue.

EDIT: I thought I'd add that although I've never had a care about death, I have been petrified of impending insanity many a time. I don't know why.

 

[Sojourner]

I think most people, when not anxious, see death in a healthy way. That is, they intellectually accept the notion that they are going to die someday and they are not tortured by that fact. As they mature, they deal with the fact that the longer they live, the closer they are to experiencing death.

But if you mean literally not caring, if they live or die, I don't think that's normal (or healthy). The implications of such an attitude are many. What role does such an attitude have on that person's life and relationships with those who do value life? Apathy toward the idea of dying seems to me to not be the norm at all for healthy individuals.

I don't know that I agree that "people will go to any lengths they can to avoid having their time cut short," either. Many people willingly give their lives to save others.

Not to value life is not normal, no. At least not to me.

If you, however, don't mean what I understood you to mean, and you are referring to your friends who are afraid right now, and you think they are being irrational and THEY are really the "people" you are talking about, please consider that the terrible events in London last month, in Madrid several years ago, and all over the world affect individuals differently.

For example, walking home today, I was just enjoying the warmth of the sun and the beautiful blue sky. All of a sudden I had the thought of the people who jumped from the World Trade Center to their deaths to avoid a death by fire. I was overcome with grief and awful trembling, just walking down the street, just because I connected in my mind the beautiful blue sky of today and the beautiful blue sky of that unspeakable September morning in 2001.

Trauma affects people differently, especially in the very near term. Be patient with your friends. Please.

 

[Beth]

I vary between being quite upset about it and not caring (in the healthy way definied by sojourner), and very occasionally, looking forward to it (not in a suicidal way).

Although actually, when it upsets me it isn't really death, it's just absurdity. And I'm growing out of that.

The alternative would be so much worse.

Spent most of the afternoon getting a 90 year old back into her house and then explaining keys. I don't want to hit that stage myself.

 

[wadey3]

I agree with u on that one monkeydust. Your friends are being irrational, blowing the situation out of porportion, there are millions of ways to die, bordeing from the horrific to the ridiculoous. This one couple feared flying, never flew anywhere, ended up being killed lying in bed when a small plane flew through their bedroom....

Fear of insanity is a different matter, get that alll the time, ain't fun, be nice to say f$ck it so I am insane but dp does not allow it. dp, at its worse has me look at death with open arms........ When your time is up its up, simple always has hopefully always will be but us humans tinker too much, think immortality would be cool, until you look at where to put everyone....

wade

 

[Monkeydust]

The example of the trains was illustrative rather than something that's happened often, and, though it's hard to believe from what I'm like on here, I'm actually normally really patient with people in real life.

I do value life, and try to make the most of it as much as I can, I'm not saying that I actually want to die or that I'd go out of my way in order to make that happen. I don't seek death in any way at all. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't go out of my way to avoid death like most people I know seem to, not becasue of anything wrong with living, but because when you're dead you won't care. I don't see it as something to fear or not think about, I'm just not too bothered by it.

I brought it up because it seems that most people in normal situations seem to do their utmost to avoid it and, in the case of a few people I know, are sometimes obsessed by it. Perhaps I'll have some more thoughts when I'm feeling less rambly.

 

[mulder]

I think you are kind of right. What if you were in a plane crash? What if you died in that crash? Well, you wouldn't care, you'd be dead. What if you survived in the crash? Well, you'd probably have injuries to deal with, maybe be left without a limb or two, and have to live on like that, which could be so much more painful.

Death COULD be better, for YOU, if living on was going to be unbearable. Thing is, other people might take it badly, and most people have plans, dreams to fulfill, etc... So that's why they want to avoid death, they enjoy living and experiencing the things they love.

 

[Sojourner]

Actually, the laws of physics lend more support to the argument that God exists than to the argument that matter was created by itself.

 

[Monkeydust]

Care to elaborate? That kind of statement doesn't "fly" without any kind of explanation.

Not to mention that your whole supposition is logically flawed by the fact that you make the jump from "a God exists who created the universe" to "there is an afterlife and it's what MY God says it is". But why let the facts get in the way of a good sermon?

 

[Universal]

I find that feelings of fear of death and dying are greatly increased my overall anxiety. If you have any anxieties or panic attacks then most definitely you will be feelings higher connections with thoughts of death and dying. I think that dealing with the anxiety are the first steps to dispelling fearful thoughts regarding death.

 

[jamieayres]

Death or dying doesnt really bother me, also have no thoughts on my existence or my place in the universe either....damn im shallow

Losing my mind however...now that scares the shit out of me.

 

[Milan]

When I was nine years old I was putting on my shoes one morning and this thought occurred to me - if I die and there is no god, what happens?. This scared the crap out of me because I couldn't fathom the concept that one day I would become nothing. The next two years that's all I could think about and I was so depressed. Over the next couple of decades death anxiety came and went.

Today I still worry about it and there are days when the fear is strong - I just try not to focus on it just as I do with the DP/DR. I've been down the path of thinking about it too many times and I never come up with an answer (or a feeling) that made me comfortable with death. I'm sort of leaving it for the time being until I'm in a better state of mind to contemplate it. But when I feel better I probably won't give death two seconds worth of thought.

 

[Sojourner]

Care to elaborate? That kind of statement doesn't "fly" without any kind of explanation.

A couple of things:

- Nothing is destroyed; it just changes form. (First Law of Thermodynamics).

- Causality.

- Evidence of design templates in the physical world.

- Laws that describe how matter behaves.

- Evidence that there are ways of knowing that are not empirical.

- Human experience of the "totally other" that is not the fruit of hallucination.

------------

Not to mention that your whole supposition is logically flawed by the fact that you make the jump from "a God exists who created the universe" to "there is an afterlife and it's what MY God says it is". But why let the facts get in the way of a good sermon?

Please show me where I made that leap. I'd really like to see it. :lol:

If I said something that led you believe that's what I believe, then that's different. So show me the quote, please, and I will explain.

 

[Monkeydust]

Nice words, but what does it all mean?

- Nothing is destroyed; it just changes form. (First Law of Thermodynamics).

How do we get from that to a God existing?

- Causality.

As above.

- Evidence of design templates in the physical world.

What evidence?

- Laws that describe how matter behaves.

First question again.

- Evidence that there are ways of knowing that are not empirical.

What evidence? What "ways of knowing" that aren't empirical? Psychics? What do they have to do with God anyway?

- Human experience of the "totally other" that is not the fruit of hallucination.

This reminds me of a medieval book I once glanced at that mentioned my own town. I was drawn to what it was like in the "good old days". One story that struck me was a statue of Mary outside the Church by the river which cried real tears, and which drew people to leave generous offerings at its feet.

The monks documented how they filled a cavity in the statue head with water which carefully seeped out through the permeable thing layer covering the statue's eyes.

Not a hallucination, no. Just a lie.

Please show me where I made that leap.

There's no one quote, it rather derives from the content of most of what you say on the issue.

You yourself are openly Catholic and believe in the Christian God. Yet in order to support this belief you very often adduce arguments which, quite apart from being flawed themselves anyway, only serve to prove the existence of a God, or Gods, or divine will of some sort. "Proving" the existence of God is quite different to proving the truth of your God, as I remember pointing out in the logical absurdity of the Pascal's Wager thread a few months ago. That's why it can be very misleading.

 

[enigma]

I've been on a strange seesaw ride where death anxiety is concerned.

I went from being petrified with fear about it to not caring about it at all, and suddenly, after two decades, feeling terrified of it again for some reason (maybe because it feels so much closer now?).

Fortunately, only one real panic attack over it since its return.

But I can't really think of death in the same casual terms as I was able to only a month or so ago.

I don't know what it could possibly mean.

e

 

[Sojourner]

Monkeydust,

I understand you. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Martinelv]

I'm not afraid of death, because being afraid of death is like being afraid of the time before you were born. Death is nothingness, less than nothing, so what's to be scared of? I don't want to die however, because I know that this is the only life we get, so I want to enjoy it as best I can. I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be dead. If you get my drift.

 

[Sojourner]

If you knew this was the only life we get, you would be all-knowing.

 

[maria]

I know there is no reason to worry about death, as there is no reason to worry about anything. Still I worry and I can't do anything but try to talk myself out of it, which doesn't work. So I'm afraid of death, partly because I imagine myself dying in some horrible way. The other part I don't know. I want to stop living like this almost all the time, but I guess I have a hope that there's a more pleasant way to live. And I haven't seen that yet. Perhaps it ain't that great either, so then I can stop worrying about death and instead start harrassing old women.

 

[LOSTONE]

I'm not afraid of death, because being afraid of death is like being afraid of the time before you were born. Death is nothingness, less than nothing, so what's to be scared of? I don't want to die however, because I know that this is the only life we get, so I want to enjoy it as best I can. I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be dead. If you get my drift.

Martinelv I was going to use the same (death is like being afraid of the time before you were born.) line to explain it. There is nothing to fear except the fact that you will not exist. Once your dead your fear is gone.
What needs to be feared is the wrong choices that we may be making wile yet alive.

Good post Martinelv.

P.S. This is the only chance we get, not the only life.
This life is simply a test.