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Somewhat controversially, I wonder if that existential horror was really so bad. I can think of worse ways to spend 48 minutes that contemplating the reality of
by swombat 9y ago
Somewhat controversially, I wonder if that existential horror was really so bad. I can think of worse ways to spend 48 minutes that contemplating the reality of your mortality, the fact that you could very well be dead at any moment with no warning whatsoever. It makes you re-evaluate your priorities, maybe makes you stop putting off the life changes you were thinking about that seemed like they could wait until next year.
These 48 minutes may well have changed a whole bunch of people's lives for the better, in the long term.
- hutzlibu 9y agoOr it will get them killed, once there is a real alarm and they sit down to meditate instead of seeking shelter ...
- crispyambulance 9y agoI think that for anyone who has kids, those minutes could very well have been unimaginably awful. I guess you can think of it like waterboarding. Waterboarding doesn't harm anyone, it forces one to contemplate mortality, but it is also something so terrible that one would not wish on anybody.
- nvader 9y agoThis is an un-empathetic thing to say, because you're ignoring the real emotional experiences of the people who lived through this. The terror experienced by people, especially but not limited to those with predisposition to anxiety, hypertension, panic attacks or suicidal thoughts, will have a real impact on their lives. Or imagine someone who, convinced of an impending death, donates all of their saved wealth to charities online.
- swombat 9y agoPerhaps a bit of context might make it seem less like I’m being unempathetic. TL;DR: I was caught in the London tube bombings in 2005 and I believe it changed my life for the better. http://swombat.com/2011/12/19/bomb-changed-my-life http://swombat.com/2011/12/19/bomb-changed-my-life