our mortality

pink_ribbon_scars · 01-05-2005, 01:24 AM

on monday morning there was an old man, maybe 80 years old, sitting in front of me on the bus, at profile, and younger men all around him and i started thinking about aging again, and how amazing and horrific it is to watch my body and the bodies of everyone i know deteriorating and getting old and moving towards a sure death. i think it's amazing how i know that this is what's happening yet i'm able to constantly 'forget' it. generally, it totally slips my mind that there are a finite number of days left in my life and that i'll be 25, then 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95, 105 tops and that's IT as far as i know. i don't take it very seriously, and i'm not sure how i feel about that.

do you think about your motality much? want to share anything you think about it?

ammy · 01-05-2005, 01:27 AM

if you spend too much time dwelling on death, how can you live?

Fathoms · 01-05-2005, 01:37 AM

I think about mortality every day. Especially at night when I'm laying in bed. It could be 60 years before I bite the dust, but it's probably much sooner than that when some sort of family tragedy will happen. So I think about what terrible things that will happen as I get older. Dead pets, dead relatives, car crashes, disease. Maybe some freak accident will leave me blind or paralyzed.

Death doesn't scare me so much, but dying does. I dread the moment of realization that my time is up, and the feeling of helplessness as my limbs no longer respond to my commands and whatever spark that is in my brain flickers into non-existence.

Aging is a form of dying. I don't like watching as my childhood gets so far away it's nothing more than a foggy memory, and having people's health deteriorate. I'm seriously not looking forward to burying my parents...

Some part of me believes that there is much more to a life than what you can see and experience with the senses. Even intellectually I romanticize idea's about afterlife or a cosmic consciousness. But there is a big difference between believing and knowing. And the lack of knowing will always keep my beliefs from providing any sort of comfort.

01-05-2005, 01:40 AM

when i drive i think of the slightest movement that would send me flying off into the ditch or the guard rail or the trees. i constantly think about how i could have died today. it's not really morbid, but every time i drive i wonder what it would be like...you know those last few breaths before life totally escapes and consciousness disappears.

when i was on the hospital they put me on morphine, and i found out i was allergic to it. i had a heart monitor thing, and i'd press the pump when the pain got too bad, and i remember the nurses rushing in and waking me back up after i heard all these beeping things. the morphine was making me pass out so much that they took me off it, but i began to think of death as this slow progression into nothingness. it was beautiful in it's simplicity really. things like this make me consider budhism.

anyway, it's much better to sit around and just experience everything than it is to wonder when it will all disappear.

pink_ribbon_scars · 01-05-2005, 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ammy
if you spend too much time dwelling on death, how can you live?

is it dwelling to think about it? i can imagine that it might be a healthy and positive force in my life if i thought about it a little more. i mean, it seems like i should have a deeper understanding and respect for the fact that i am going to die.. well, i guess there are a lot of different ways to lead a good life, and i guess some people think about death a lot and some people think of it little. maybe the latter are better off, but i may never know. i just think the process of living and then dying is amazing. you've got to tell me how you feel about this, please. :]

ammy · 01-05-2005, 01:43 AM

no, i just thought the way your first post read that you thought that being able to forget about death for times was wrong or something?

spa ced · 01-05-2005, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ammy
if you spend too much time dwelling on death, how can you live?

you are the cliche statement queen.

ammy · 01-05-2005, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by spa ced

you are the cliche statement queen.

you take me to litterally.

making assumptions makes an ass out of you and me!

alisonmonster · 01-05-2005, 01:50 AM

i wonder about it - i feel that nothing completely terrible has happened to me yet so i'm waiting for the big train wreck to happen any day now. I wonder who it will be and when. Its morbid but i think that i've been too lucky so far in my life.

spa ced · 01-05-2005, 01:52 AM

do you realize that everyone you know one day will die?

i saw a guy mouth that lyric to his girlfriend at the flaming lips new year's eve show in nyc and i found it really humourous. that lyric had always been sad to me but i saw it in a different light after that.

pink_ribbon_scars · 01-05-2005, 01:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ammy
no, i just thought the way your first post read that you thought that being able to forget about death for times was wrong or something?

i was just trying to start a conversation. i don't feel like it's wrong to forget about death, it's just weird to me right now. it's good and natural not to obsess over death, but i guess i feel like the fact that i'm going to die is possibly a very important fact in my life, and a fact i could benefit from taking more seriously. i'm just saying i don't often take it into consideration that this is my life and it is going to end relatively soon. every time it really strikes me that i'm going to die, the living force inside of me seems much more valuable. it feels different to be alive in those moments of thought than it feels when i let those thoughts slip away. i'm just saying how i feel at the moment, to find out how you guys feel and to talk about it. i guess what bothers me might be that i don't know whether i value my days enough, which is possibly disjuct from being aware that i will die.

Esotarious · 01-05-2005, 02:29 AM

Take death for example. A great deal of effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts too delay it and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.

spa ced · 01-05-2005, 02:53 AM

I like the Eastern way of viewing death much more than the Western way.
Reincarnation and what not.

alexthestampede · 01-05-2005, 03:28 AM

i dont think ill ever be able to overcome my natural fear of death
ill most likely spend the last moments of my life in a panic

DeadSwan · 01-05-2005, 03:58 AM

death isn't scary at all, but dying is. i think about death a lot, actually. i used to obsess about it as a child; not so much in regards to myself, but I would have these horrible, very vivid waking nightmares about my parents being dead, layed out in their coffins.

maybe that's more normal than i assume. or not.

Esty · 01-05-2005, 04:06 AM

I think about what there is after death. I'm catholic, so I constantly worry if I will be good enough to get into heaven. My father has really gotten into church these past few years and is always trying to get me to go to church with him for group meetings. I never tell him no and never say yes. I've done things i'm not proud of, but overall I think i'm a good person.

That's all I think about when it comes to death.

pink_ribbon_scars · 01-06-2005, 01:42 PM

i like how differently everyone thinks about it.

bornentertainer · 01-06-2005, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by that bitch kristin
when i drive i think of the slightest movement that would send me flying off into the ditch or the guard rail or the trees. i constantly think about how i could have died today. it's not really morbid, but every time i drive i wonder what it would be like...you know those last few breaths before life totally escapes and consciousness disappears.

I do this all the time.

alexthestampede · 01-06-2005, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Esotarious
Take death for example. A great deal of effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts too delay it and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.

an example of what?

tootsie · 01-06-2005, 02:32 PM

i do in much the same fashion as you do. not until something really strkes me will i think about it. last nite in bed eric and i were talking about how he is turning 28 next month. that really made me think how the years are speeding past.

especially since we have been considering having a child, that really makes you think about it as well.

alexthestampede · 01-06-2005, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bornentertainer

I do this all the time.

http://salmonlust.com/cw/images/AH-MOVIE.gif

MeAndMyLlama · 01-06-2005, 02:47 PM

its not that im afraid of death im afraid of nothingness. what if there is no afterlife and you just rot in the ground? reincarnation seems unlikely to me but i would love it to be true. it doesnt seem like a human being could ever come back as like a fly or something though. it seems like your soul is given a a body to incarnate as a mortal on planet earth so we would all come back as humans.

AndySlash · 01-06-2005, 04:04 PM

I'm more afraid of how I'll die than actually being dead. I fear a long, drawn out painful death. Ideally, I'll die without ever knowing I just died, like getting blindsided by a truck or something and not even have that split second of realization before it happens. Watching that one beheading video- Nick Berg I think?- cemented the fact that I do not ever want to suffer immense pain and know I'm dying when it's happening, like in a car accident or fire or being shot or something. That's fucking scary. I can't imagine what was going through that guy's mind when his head was getting hacked... nor do I want to.

I've never been to concerned with what happens after I die... I take the "we'll see what happens" approach, I guess.

As for thinking about death, like someone else, I tend to do it at night when I'm going to sleep or something. It keeps me up sometimes.

Slacker · 01-06-2005, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by spa ced

you are the cliche statement queen.

and you are just a queen

01-05-2005, 01:24 AM	#1
pink_ribbon_scars At the beginning Location: GJ 1214 b Posts: 10,760	our mortality on monday morning there was an old man, maybe 80 years old, sitting in front of me on the bus, at profile, and younger men all around him and i started thinking about aging again, and how amazing and horrific it is to watch my body and the bodies of everyone i know deteriorating and getting old and moving towards a sure death. i think it's amazing how i know that this is what's happening yet i'm able to constantly 'forget' it. generally, it totally slips my mind that there are a finite number of days left in my life and that i'll be 25, then 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95, 105 tops and that's IT as far as i know. i don't take it very seriously, and i'm not sure how i feel about that. do you think about your motality much? want to share anything you think about it?

01-05-2005, 02:29 AM	#12
Esotarious Pledge Location: Indiana Posts: 198	favorite line about death Take death for example. A great deal of effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts too delay it and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.

01-05-2005, 01:27 AM	#2
ammy yer mom Posts: 23,180	if you spend too much time dwelling on death, how can you live?

01-05-2005, 01:37 AM	#3
Fathoms Pledge Location: omnipresent Posts: 196	I think about mortality every day. Especially at night when I'm laying in bed. It could be 60 years before I bite the dust, but it's probably much sooner than that when some sort of family tragedy will happen. So I think about what terrible things that will happen as I get older. Dead pets, dead relatives, car crashes, disease. Maybe some freak accident will leave me blind or paralyzed. Death doesn't scare me so much, but dying does. I dread the moment of realization that my time is up, and the feeling of helplessness as my limbs no longer respond to my commands and whatever spark that is in my brain flickers into non-existence. Aging is a form of dying. I don't like watching as my childhood gets so far away it's nothing more than a foggy memory, and having people's health deteriorate. I'm seriously not looking forward to burying my parents... Some part of me believes that there is much more to a life than what you can see and experience with the senses. Even intellectually I romanticize idea's about afterlife or a cosmic consciousness. But there is a big difference between believing and knowing. And the lack of knowing will always keep my beliefs from providing any sort of comfort.

01-05-2005, 01:40 AM	#4
that bitch kristin Posts: n/a	when i drive i think of the slightest movement that would send me flying off into the ditch or the guard rail or the trees. i constantly think about how i could have died today. it's not really morbid, but every time i drive i wonder what it would be like...you know those last few breaths before life totally escapes and consciousness disappears. when i was on the hospital they put me on morphine, and i found out i was allergic to it. i had a heart monitor thing, and i'd press the pump when the pain got too bad, and i remember the nurses rushing in and waking me back up after i heard all these beeping things. the morphine was making me pass out so much that they took me off it, but i began to think of death as this slow progression into nothingness. it was beautiful in it's simplicity really. things like this make me consider budhism. anyway, it's much better to sit around and just experience everything than it is to wonder when it will all disappear.

01-05-2005, 01:43 AM	#6
ammy yer mom Posts: 23,180	no, i just thought the way your first post read that you thought that being able to forget about death for times was wrong or something?

01-05-2005, 01:50 AM	#9
alisonmonster Minion of Satan Location: gasoline alley Posts: 9,019	i wonder about it - i feel that nothing completely terrible has happened to me yet so i'm waiting for the big train wreck to happen any day now. I wonder who it will be and when. Its morbid but i think that i've been too lucky so far in my life.

01-05-2005, 01:52 AM	#10
spa ced Braindead Location: Machu Picchu Posts: 15,291	do you realize that everyone you know one day will die? i saw a guy mouth that lyric to his girlfriend at the flaming lips new year's eve show in nyc and i found it really humourous. that lyric had always been sad to me but i saw it in a different light after that.

01-05-2005, 02:53 AM	#13
spa ced Braindead Location: Machu Picchu Posts: 15,291	I like the Eastern way of viewing death much more than the Western way. Reincarnation and what not.

01-05-2005, 03:28 AM	#14
alexthestampede Banned Location: I am from the sea! Posts: 4,947	i dont think ill ever be able to overcome my natural fear of death ill most likely spend the last moments of my life in a panic

01-05-2005, 03:58 AM	#15
DeadSwan Socialphobic Location: GAZA STRIP MALL Posts: 10,828	death isn't scary at all, but dying is. i think about death a lot, actually. i used to obsess about it as a child; not so much in regards to myself, but I would have these horrible, very vivid waking nightmares about my parents being dead, layed out in their coffins. maybe that's more normal than i assume. or not.

01-05-2005, 04:06 AM	#16
Esty Netphorian of the Decade Location: Waiting in line for his geranium kiss Posts: 15,478	I think about what there is after death. I'm catholic, so I constantly worry if I will be good enough to get into heaven. My father has really gotten into church these past few years and is always trying to get me to go to church with him for group meetings. I never tell him no and never say yes. I've done things i'm not proud of, but overall I think i'm a good person. That's all I think about when it comes to death.

01-06-2005, 01:42 PM	#17
pink_ribbon_scars At the beginning Location: GJ 1214 b Posts: 10,760	i like how differently everyone thinks about it.

01-06-2005, 02:32 PM	#20
tootsie Minion of Satan Location: go go gadget goggler Posts: 5,346	i do in much the same fashion as you do. not until something really strkes me will i think about it. last nite in bed eric and i were talking about how he is turning 28 next month. that really made me think how the years are speeding past. especially since we have been considering having a child, that really makes you think about it as well.

01-06-2005, 02:47 PM	#22
MeAndMyLlama Location: Is this the rest of our lives? Posts: 2,880	its not that im afraid of death im afraid of nothingness. what if there is no afterlife and you just rot in the ground? reincarnation seems unlikely to me but i would love it to be true. it doesnt seem like a human being could ever come back as like a fly or something though. it seems like your soul is given a a body to incarnate as a mortal on planet earth so we would all come back as humans.

01-06-2005, 04:04 PM	#23
AndySlash Posts: 20,262	I'm more afraid of how I'll die than actually being dead. I fear a long, drawn out painful death. Ideally, I'll die without ever knowing I just died, like getting blindsided by a truck or something and not even have that split second of realization before it happens. Watching that one beheading video- Nick Berg I think?- cemented the fact that I do not ever want to suffer immense pain and know I'm dying when it's happening, like in a car accident or fire or being shot or something. That's fucking scary. I can't imagine what was going through that guy's mind when his head was getting hacked... nor do I want to. I've never been to concerned with what happens after I die... I take the "we'll see what happens" approach, I guess. As for thinking about death, like someone else, I tend to do it at night when I'm going to sleep or something. It keeps me up sometimes.