DO YOU FEAR DEATH????

[&-e]

I don't fear death. I do fear dying in the next 20 years, before my kids are all grown and self-sufficient, without me to be there for them. My wife's disabled and it would be rough sailing for the lot of them to say the least if I was suddenly offered 100 years before the mast.

Apart from that I'm an atheist and don't fear any kind of silly judgment or eternal torment nonsense. I'm perfectly at ease with the idea of it all 'ending'. That will be a relief. I would if possible like to have some control over when and how it happens-- e.g. if I get terminal cancer I'd rather die ice fishing in northern Ontario or barehanded lion hunting in the Serengeti than rotting away in hospice. I'd like to give my kids a cool story to tell their friends/children: "yeah my dad was one crazy SOB, he was on a lionhunt when he was 63 and got eaten, but took one of them bastard's eyes out with his teeth first", or "We found my dad dead in his ice shanty, beer frozen in one hand, fishing pole in the other".

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

yes and no. i do notice i think about it a little more often the older i get.

[kbit]

The spontaneous reaction is always no.

I don't believe in any sort of afterlife and since I won't be conscient after my death there is nothing to be afraid about. Sure, being eaten and shat out by maggots to be eaten by grass plants and the like is not a thought that makes me scream with joy, but so what. I won't be there.

Problem is the dying.
Being hospitalized, being in pain, the last moment when you feel that ten ton truck crush the bones of both of us. I once dreamt I fell off a house, which is not unusual. But I dreamt the crash too and felt my ribcage being reduced to shards etc. That was a horrifying dream. It is a very long time ago, at least twenty years, but I still remember it very vividly.
Same with suicide. While the catholic thought actually crossed my mind more than once as well, it is the dying that I am afraid of. If I were ever to take it seriously I'd try to OD on sleeping pills. But even then it would probably freak me out to fall asleep knowing I will not wake up as usual.

All of this said I do feel the existential, kreatürlichen horror of being dead and I do flee into fantasies of afterlife and getting to meet my grandfathers and getting to do the beast with two backs with that friend of mine that killed herself. Haha, or, you know getting to do some shit and say some shit to people that you can't do any more. Or, haunt the earth and see what my daughter will do with the rest of her life when I'm gone. Watching all of this go on without being involved any more. (I hope they have popcorn in that version of the afterlife.) Or, awaken to a fuller state of consciousness and finally see my life as a whole, remembering everything all at once and finally seeing if there is a reason to it, if there is a point to my story, or at least knowing for sure that there isn't, and being awakened enough to accept it.

All of these are flights, I know but I do enjoy them like a beer. Doesn't make me sing anyone's hymns just as the beer doesn't make me an alcoholic.

You are a person I'd like to share a beer with sometime.
Pun semi-intended.

[phantasmagorovich]

The spontaneous reaction is always no.

I don't believe in any sort of afterlife and since I won't be conscient after my death there is nothing to be afraid about. Sure, being eaten and shat out by maggots to be eaten by grass plants and the like is not a thought that makes me scream with joy, but so what. I won't be there.

Problem is the dying.
Being hospitalized, being in pain, the last moment when you feel that ten ton truck crush the bones of both of us. I once dreamt I fell off a house, which is not unusual. But I dreamt the crash too and felt my ribcage being reduced to shards etc. That was a horrifying dream. It is a very long time ago, at least twenty years, but I still remember it very vividly.
Same with suicide. While the catholic thought actually crossed my mind more than once as well, it is the dying that I am afraid of. If I were ever to take it seriously I'd try to OD on sleeping pills. But even then it would probably freak me out to fall asleep knowing I will not wake up as usual.

All of this said I do feel the existential, kreatürlichen horror of being dead and I do flee into fantasies of afterlife and getting to meet my grandfathers and getting to do the beast with two backs with that friend of mine that killed herself. Haha, or, you know getting to do some shit and say some shit to people that you can't do any more. Or, haunt the earth and see what my daughter will do with the rest of her life when I'm gone. Watching all of this go on without being involved any more. (I hope they have popcorn in that version of the afterlife.) Or, awaken to a fuller state of consciousness and finally see my life as a whole, remembering everything all at once and finally seeing if there is a reason to it, if there is a point to my story, or at least knowing for sure that there isn't, and being awakened enough to accept it.

All of these are flights, I know but I do enjoy them like a beer. Doesn't make me sing anyone's hymns just as the beer doesn't make me an alcoholic.

You are a person I'd like to share a beer with sometime.
Pun semi-intended.

Thanks, man! Any time you're around or I get near enough for a meetup.

[jfrey]

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
- Mark Twain

[Casavettes]

I think it's impossible to say
Because no one knows when or how it will come
It will be dealt with in that moment
And all I can do now is prepare for it however I see fit

[Greenfuz]

I like to sleep for days at a time, it's like a trial run for being dead

Not at all.
It's not if you can rely on waking up. Even years of sleep would not be like death at all. Like time travel, OK, but not like death. The TERMINAL about it is what makes death death.

sometimes I don't wanna wake up though

but I'd like to do something of substance before I actually die

[sonidero]

Sri Isopanisad:

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality...

Anytime Phantas makes it remotely close to the US me and kbithecrowing are buying the beer...

[devnulljp]

Sri Isopanisad:

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality...

What does that word salad even mean? All I see is a bunch of important sounding meaningless drivel and unsubstantiated assertions.

[sonidero]

What does that word salad even mean? All I see is a bunch of important sounding meaningless drivel and unsubstantiated assertions.

Krishna Consciousness... The Sri Isopanisad is one of the 108 Upanisads and that is one of the Mantras... Most people only have heard of the Bhagavad-gita, but Vedic knowledge is what makes the most sense to me so I have most of the stuff that A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupada has written...

[andtheLiquidmen]

I hate to be Debbie Downer, I am absolutely and completely terrified by death. The concept of lack of existence is completely unfathomable to me. I sincerely hope that I can come to terms with it over the course of my (hopefully long) life, because right now it keeps me up at night more than I care to admit. Existential fear ultimately rules a lot of my decisions.

[greyscales]

Fuck all you brave people. If I spend even a minute trying to contemplate death I have a nervous breakdown.
Death is my greatest fear. Everything else in life is fleeting and temporary. But knowing I can't exist forever is the worst. As soon as some guys in a lab figure out how to create immortal bionic humans, you can bet I'll be getting that body transplant.
An afterlife is beyond my "belief" system, if I even have one. It'd be great if there was one, but I'm not banking on it. It would probably help a lot if I had something to take the edge off of eternal nothingness. Apparently being raised Catholic did nothing for me in that sense.

And I don't mean fuck you guys. I love you all. <3

[bigchiefbc]

Finally a couple more people I can relate to.

[devnulljp]

What does that word salad even mean? All I see is a bunch of important sounding meaningless drivel and unsubstantiated assertions.

Krishna Consciousness... The Sri Isopanisad is one of the 108 Upanisads and that is one of the Mantras... Most people only have heard of the Bhagavad-gita, but Vedic knowledge is what makes the most sense to me so I have most of the stuff that A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupada has written...

Still doesn't give any insight into what it actually means, and doesn't make it any less a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions. What evidence is there that there is repeated birth and death that can have any kind of influence? What exactly is the full blessing of immortality? As nothing has ever been shown to actually be immortal, then how can anyone say that there is any way to actually achieve it without just making stuff up? The vedas are just more revelation -- which is just a fancy way of saying stuff someone made up. Somehow the fact that it was made up a long time ago is supposed to lend credence to it. I don't get it.

[sonidero]

You like Dinosaurs and I like old religious texts... It's all the same really...