I think i'll be ok with death when the time comes...

[Nazgul35]

it hit me while listening to NPR and having a convo with my wife while driving...

Now I have been one to fear death, as I like being me and the thought of complete obliteration tends to make me worry a little. But just a few days ago, I had a feeling come over me that foreshadows, I think, feeling that I may have if I am allowed to grow old enough.

It was the usual nonsense. a news story about this group doing something nasty to that group, and my wife and I opined about how stupid the whole argument was and how it was continuing to suck humanity down that dark hallway toward extinction...or worse, eons of the status quo (mean spiritedness, bigotry, war, famine, dieses, hatred, etc....)

At a certain point I just stopped, listened to my wife and let out a big sigh.....

the felling that came over me was that I was tired.....I was tired of all the nonsense, that it was just enough...i've had my full of it...

Don't get me wrong, I am not disparing or embracing the dark dispair that leads to self destuction....but that simply, I felt, for that brief moment that I wouldn't miss all this crap if the end came.....

But it passed quickly and there is plenty that I would miss...but I can see how, if I live to be in my 70s and 80s, how death would be a welcome event, a release from all the nastiness that humanity slings at each other as we crawl across the surface of this backwater world in this imense universe....

All this ebing said, when the time comes, death 'ol boy will have to rip life from my hands...but oblivion may be a viable alternative after witnessing a lifetime of humanity's baser instincts....

happy new year everyone!!!

:evilgrin:

[demsrule4life]

1. I hate to admit it

but I dont mind being on the down slope side of life.

[AlienGirl]

2. I've been ready for a long time now

Had I known what would happen these past few years, I would never have had radiation. I'd have gotten the hemiglossectomy and taken the 30% chance of dying in the next few years.

I'm tired *now*, and there may be decades left to go.

Tucker

[Randi_Listener]

3. Sad?

What happened why are you so depressed and hateful of life now?

[AlienGirl]

6. Well...

I had cancer, then my husband left me and took custody of the kids. (I get visitation, though.) He has recently replaced me with his ideal woman--my kids sometimes mess up and call me by her name or call her "Mom." It's like George Bailey in reverse: I go back to the Midwest and see how little a hole my absence left.

Radiation treatments have left my mouth weak and vulnerable to cavities (dental treatment is not paid by Social Security). I make under $1000/month as a checkout girl. In this economy, I'm lucky to have a job at all. I never finished college (dropped out to be a full-time mother) and my tenuous health--my immune system has never completely recovered from the battering it took--makes me unlikely to be a good candidate for a "real" job. People treat me like shit all day long and when anyone hears what I do for a living they assume I must be stupid.

I was first diagnosed with depression when I was four years old. My medication isn't covered by Social Security either. I've never been a really happy person. I have no reason to think this will change.

The best years of my life happened in the 90's.

Tucker

[Randi_Listener]

9. Without meds and/or self or professional therapy....

...it appears that little will change. What else do many of us have other than regret?

[AlienGirl]

11. Meds and therapy take money

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. No kids, I guess.

I used to feel that way until I had kids. Now I feel that I have to live as long as I can to protect them from crap.
I feel terrible about the world my little girls will have to grow up in, but I know I am doing what I can to make it better.
However, when the time comes... it comes.
In the immortal words of *..."bring it on."

[Cat Atomic]

5. I never feared death until this year when I buried my dad.

It just sort of slapped me in the face. I suddenly found myself trying to extend my life. I used to rock climb without paying much attention to safety issues. Now I'm very safe. I find myself wearing my seatbelt in the car. I'm suddenly passing on the fatty foods.

Ending does not appeal to me. I intend to put it off as long as I can.

It's like... it took these molecules millions of years to finally get a shot at sentience. We do not want to lose it again!!! :P

[Nazgul35]

7. felt the same way when my dad died...

I use to let life happen to me, never thought about how precious it was...until he died, than I got off my ass, went back to school, wrote my (now wife) a letter telling her how I exactly feklt about her (we'll be married 9 years this january)...

but I can understand that the awful things in this world can add up over time and you reach a point where you say...enough is enough...

My favorite line is "I'm gald my dad didn't live to see this!" I seem to be saying that more and more lately...

But don't dispare, i'm not ready to give up the ghost just yet....hell, after I graduate, i'll finally be earning a living salary and wont want to let go at that point...

[Clark4VotingRights]

8. The BFEE has made me much less afraid of death.

When every day is a nightmare, it'd just be a friggen relief.

[cryofan]

10. do not go gently into that good night, rage, rage,against...

...the dying of the light.

I plan on living forever. So far, so good.

The fact is that we do not yet know what the universe is. And the 2nd law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems. The universe may be an open system. The Big Bang theory is only one of several.

One thing to consider is that, yes, the human brain is likely evolved to accept death at some point in adulthood, and that may evidenced as a gradual acceptance of death. Many people accept death as they get older. They get tired and lose their gusto for life.

However, consider the possibility that mankind in the future should be able to manipulate the body to such a degree as to not only provide physical immortality, but to also provide complete ability to manipulate the moods and feelings and emotions of the brain. So you would never get tired or depressed or bored, unless you wanted to be.

So, like I said, I plan to try to live forever. But how does one transport oneself into the immortal future that will likely be provided by science? AFAIK, the experimental science of cryonics is the only hope of doing that. To that end I wear a cryonics bracelet and necklace pendant giving instructions for arranging cryopreservation with www.alcor.org

Ya pays your money and takes your chances.....

[RandomKoolzip]

12. I will always fear death.

It's like that joke:

Live everyday as if it were your last: lots of crying and screaming.

[Valerie5555]

13. If there really is a "Rainbow Bridge"

I actually wouldn't fear death and would actually look forward to seeing my other kitties Ginger and Midnight again.

[Kanary]

14. I wouldn't have guessed what your post was about

I'm with you on this one. I'm already tired and wrung out, waaay before my time. It's very difficult for me to actually grasp that people can be sooo harsh and sooo unkind. It takes it's toll, and it has on me.

I strongly figure that I'll be one of the ones cut from programs I need in order to survive, and the only question is whether I go quietly and in a way that is less uncomfortable for me, or whether I use it as a way to make a statment about what is happening. I'm angry that I have to even be thinking in those terms. And, I really resent having to figure it out alone.

Where is Mother Theresa when you need her?

Kanary

[Room101]

15. Aldous Huxley said of death..............

"Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?"

[FloridaJudy]

16. Death Scares the Manure Out of Me

I'm not proud.

I've had many dreams in which dying was inevitable - most recently several dreams in which I was trapped in a collapsing building during an earthquake.

My last thought before I get smushed into jelly was "I've had a GOOD life, and I believe the Goddess understands that I've always tried to do the Ethical Thing".

It's still a really, really scary thought. Suppose I'm wrong, and God is really is the vicious SOB that fundamentalists and the orthodox believe He is? I still would not want to be saved. Little could be worse than being forced to spend eternity with His toadies.

[Booberdawg]

17. I do not fear death

I don't have a death wish, I don't think, although I do look forward to the day I can join my son in heaven because I do miss him terribly on a daily basis.

It's like I wouldn't do anything to hasten my own death, but I wouldn't do anything to prevent it either. I'm just not afraid of dying - I almost welcome it as a reward. I do not consider it a punishment or an end, but the beginning of something new. I just think if I were told tomorrow that I had x amount of months to live, I'd say - Okay - Bring it on.

[101 Proof]

18. I'm afraid of death...

deathly afraid....pardon the oxymoron. I'm scared even thinking about it. I've gotten panic attacks over the thought of death. I don't know why, though. I guess I'm afraid on what's on the other side...:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

I've never told anyone this before. I'm kinda leery about telling it now. I don't know why, though.

[Bundbuster]

19. I think it helps...

to remember that the one commonality of all living beings is the "final deliverance". If all the billions who have come before me have dealt with this, then surely I can too without great apprehension. I try to be "closed" with all loved ones and dreams on a daily basis - don't wait for tomorrow to say what you feel or go for your goals - and never position your last thought to be "I wish I'd..."

[Obamarama]

20. Not ready to go YET, but I don't fear death either.....

But I think I'd either want to go quick, without ever knowing what hit me, or have a diagnoses of something like 6 to 9 months. I am freaked out whenever I hear about people going to the doctor for some malady and finding out they have a month or less left to live.
The control freak in me would really have a problem with having only a month to get everything in order and say you good byes, etc...

[tishaLA]

21. Yeah...death doesn't bug me either

It's funny--I was diagnosed a year and three months ago with congestive heart failure at a very young age. The ocs thought that I would either die or have a heart transplant within a couple months and prepared my friends for that eventuality. When I had people coming into my room in the caridica intensive care unit to do things like dental evaluations and psychological evanluations for transplantation, I thought--stupidly--that it was purely a theoretical exercise (I'm in academia and I spend too much time in that mode; even when my dissertation director called me in the hospital, I started talking about ALexander Hamilton instead of my heart!).

Anyhow...part of me had always believed that I would turn to religion when death approached and that I would evaluate my life anew and all that happy horseshit they tell you about. Nope. Nada. In fact, I decided that since I was going to die, I didn't have to be nice to anyone I didn't want to be nice to. I could ignore people who annoyed me and I would only have to put up with them for 6 months AT MOST and then THEY would regret it, not me! Woohoo! And no thought of God or anything. No Oscar Wilde death bed conversions for me!

Then my body decided to live. And apparently the heart will last for a long time. Oh well. But I learned not to fear death, but to embrace it. The worst part of my CCU stay was that I watched Fox news constantly since the signal for CNN sucked. I saw more of Linda Vester in three weeks than anyone deserves.

[Davo Dinkum]

22. A piece of existential thought on the subject.

I believe that whilst physical death may destroy us, ultimately, it also saves us. For if there were no death, our time on earth would mean nothing. Our actions would have no consequence. When one realizes that they don't have forever to work on their projects, it reinvigorates them. :)