14 ms·

How to Live with Dying

144 points by exolymph 6y ago

SommaRaikkonen 6y ago
Lately there's been quite a few articles on HN about cancer, death and a variety of subjects regarding mortality. I read all of them, and the HN comments as well. Plus, ever since having a kid, I've begun to appreciate living more and more.
- xwdv 6y ago
  This year all the world seems to be in a dying mood. As the new decade begins in 2021, we can only imagine a grim dark future.
  - RalfWausE 6y ago
    What we observe at the moment is one thing that most people fear the most: Change The future seems to be grim and dark at the moment, but in the darkness, the light shines the brightest! So, lets work together to make things work, burn away the darkness and do not let our self get trapped in depression.
    - ReactiveJelly 6y ago
      What keeps me up at night is, once everything is fixed, a lot of innocents will be dead, and many who survive will not have learned the lesson.
- hawkoy 6y ago
  I take them positively as you but I have failed so hard at taking constructive steps to improve the situation. I keep getting sucked into negativity online and I feel I am toxic as well. I will take a break from HN and go play with my dad.
- exolymph 6y ago
  I think it's very important to internalize and accept one's own mortality. We need to digest the true stakes that we're dealing with.
- mpfundstein 6y ago
  i dont think its good for our mental.health to read all that shit.
naringas 6y ago
we gotta understand that life and death are two aspects of only one real thing. it is only our language which separates them into seemingly contrasting opposites. language is not reality, it merely has the ability to mirror reality.
- xdavidliu 6y ago
  the difference between "life" and "death" is greater (many would even argue significantly greater) than the difference between "different" and "two aspects of".
  - naringas 6y ago
    I insist, both life and death refer to the same real underlying phenomenon of existence along time. the words are not the meaning. but I suppose I have also wound up believing that "everything" and "nothing" are more similar than one would initially guess. though not as similar as life and death.
    - s3krit 6y ago
      Love DMT, me
      - naringas 6y ago
        hallucinogens in general indeed forcefully show one things like this. but it's really about realizing and acknowledging a separation between what we are, our language, and the way in which the elements of language (symbols-vocabulary) are representations distinct from what they represent, with this, one can realize that life and death, while distinct concepts within language, are in fact aspects of a whole which cannot be logically fitted into languages such as ours.
    - xdavidliu 6y ago
      what about "different" and "two aspects of"? Are those two phrases also two aspects of the same thing, or are they distinguishable in some way?
momokoko 6y ago
This is some white people shit
Ninjinka 6y ago
One enormous advantage many of the religious have in terms of mentally coping with life is that they don't believe they will ever truly die. Hats off to those who find motivation to live without that.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  As someone who was once religious, I can tell you at at least for me, this never really dealt with existential dread. Maybe I just didn't believe hard enough. But it stands to reason that thoughts of the afterlife do not do much: religious people do not seem, in the main, to have significantly less fear or avoidance of death. The drive to live would be pretty anemic if a mere mental trick could defuse it. Personally, now that I'm secular, I still fear death. But at least I understand that that fear only exists because of my built in neurobiological values, which are there because they helped my ancestors reproduce. That doesn't really change things much either, but at least it's a true explanation. Before there was always a cognitive dissonance: if things are going to be way way better after we die, why do we try so hard to avoid death?
  - abnry 6y ago
    I remain deeply religious, and there is something of a fear of death, but it is mostly related to the fear of the unknown. I believe I will see God face to face and that's kind of terrifying. I am honestly more afraid of pain than death. Any religious faith is a faith, even though people like to suggest silly arguments that faith necessarily is blind or unbounded, but it is still a hope in something unseen.
    - srtjstjsj 6y ago
      How do you choose your supernatural beliefs? Why not choose more fun ones, like that God is a loving cool dude to hang out with?
      - abnry 6y ago
        I mean, do you have any knowledge of Christianity and its history? Not sure if you are sincere.
abhinav22 6y ago
The beauty of life is in its mortality. Enjoy every moment on earth and with your loved ones, cherish what you do with them and rest peacefully that you lived a full life. That’s how I try and get over the depressing fact that all my loved ones and myself will be no more one day.
- ivalm 6y ago
  Beauty of life is not mortality. We mostly live in the moment, if involuntary death wasn’t an issue (and everything else was similar) then life would be subjectively better.
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    Maybe to some. I really wouldn't want to live for hundreds of years. Eventually everything gets boring.
    - ivalm 6y ago
      That’s why I said involuntary death. I am all for voluntary death.
    - TaupeRanger 6y ago
      You don't know that. Most old people who are ready to die would think much differently if their peers and loved ones also lived longer. The rest of them would rather continue living. "I actually really do want to die eventually" sounds a lot like Stockholm Syndrome.
  - kls 6y ago
    I don't believe it would and I think Steve Jobs summed it up better than I could on the subject "Death is very likely the single best invention of life". It puts pressure on us and if we take the correct view of death it empowers us into action. It's funny I don't really fear death and I don't really understand the existential crisis that people have over it. I do however understand that living forever in this existence would soon grow old. All of my ancestors have lived for unusually long lengths of time. Most of them going to 100-110 years of age. My last great grandparent died when I was 30, until 2013 all of my grandparents were alive. The reason I bring this up, is none of them where in fear of what was coming after nearly a century on this earth they were ready to go. My last great grandfather was 107 when he passed, he was diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer. The doc told him it could be treated and that even at his age his chances of survival where close to 90%. He looked at the doc and said WTF are you going to give me 5 years? I am 107 years old, my wife has been dead for several years, I am going home to die. You see he saw death as mercy from a long life and the older I get the more I understand that. If there is something after and it is eternal then I would think it would be of a vastly different nature than the life we experience now. Simply put we are not designed mentally or physically to live forever. Now I have faith there is something else, and I believe that this existence is a learning experience along that path and one of those core lessons is learned via death and that is on our own left to our own devices immortal existence is a futile endeavor. I think that is pretty apparent just looking of the last two centuries of human strife and the state of current affairs. Without death, life would just be a default not something to appreciate and enjoy, it would be taken for granted and our very nature would be different. I have the benefit of if I am wrong well then I am just dead. Either way I am OK with the outcome, because I really have no choice in the matter. Worrying about it only distracts from what we should be doing and that is living in the time we have. As a side note, I am not trying to be somber and I enjoy living, but living for eternity in this reality, based on what I have seen just in my lifetime, seems like a hell and not something I would strive for.
exolymph 6y ago
"On and on you will go, making sense of the world, forming notions of order, and being surprised in ways large and small by their failure, forever." — Albert Burneko on Wile E. Coyote: https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-wile-e-coyote-explains-the-world-1752248034 https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-wile-e-coyote-explains...
andrewstuart 6y ago
On the topic of how overexercise can damage the heart by James OKeefe, a cardiologist and lifetime obsessive runner: Notably he points out that they tested people blood after doing long distance events and found that many of them had chemicals usually found in heart attack victims, indicating heart damage. Basically he says that the long term overexercise/heart damage means the heart muscle constantly has microtears which heal up and the healed tissue is scar tissue which is hard and not like normal heart tissue - much harder and less elastic. So people who overtrain end up with a heart much older than their physical age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0 Transcript: https://singjupost.com/run-for-your-life-at-a-comfortable-pace-and-not-too-far-by-james-okeefe-transcript/ https://singjupost.com/run-for-your-life-at-a-comfortable-pa... Another video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8eEYwtfSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8eEYwtfSo And from another author on extreme exercise and the heart: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/extreme-exercise-and-the-heart https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/extreme-...
- nostromo 6y ago
  All of the science I've been seeing lately in this area seem to say, 1. short-term high-intensity training (sprints, for example) and 2. weightlifting are the best forms of exercise for general health. Running marathons and the like do not seem to promote health and can actually harm the body. And anecdotally, I've known a few folks that are obsessive long-distance runners and cyclists, and they physically look older than others in their age group.
  - boyband6666 6y ago
    If you are training properly at running however, then you are doing high intensity exercise. The track repeats, the hill reps, they are that high intensity interval training, with easier runs the rest of the time. The idea that running is just shuffling along at a steady pace is a straw man, and looks nothing like what actual runners do!
    - nostromo 6y ago
cblconfederate 6y ago
there's one worthy goal in life, and that's curing death, or alternatively, merging with a machine. The essence of our existence is the informational structure in our brains , and it's the only entity with agency in the universe. Moral views of death invariably assume there is another one, even if it is "the benign indifference of the universe", as camus said. The universe doesnt have indifference, and it can't help because in fact it doesnt exist, only my brain exists.
- smallnamespace 6y ago
  On the other hand, curing death would cause many societal problems. If you think the current amount of wealth inequality is bad, just wait until the young need to compete against generations of immortals who have accumulated hundreds of years of assets and interest.
  - ausbah 6y ago
    the book / show Altered Carbon does a good portrayal of this. defacto immortality has been created, but with it still being inaccessible to much of society even after hundreds of years.
- xarthna 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what you are stating here. The universe does in fact exist. When _your_ brain ceases to exist the universe will still be here, and my brain's interpretation of that universe is my consciousness.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    i mean a universe with agency or any human-like properties. And more generally, we can't really know if the universe exists outside of us. We are limited to perceive that there exist regularities in the information content that our brains exchange with each other.
abellerose 6y ago
You've lived a privileged life if you fear death. In any case we've never experienced nothingness and so I find it odd that people even assume it something to be concerned about. Universe very well could just repeat all the variables again for your experiences to happen and maybe even slightly different depending on the iteration.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  A nice hope, but even if true, it's not one that affects me by definition.
  - abellerose 6y ago
    Not really a hope but just a theory. Nothingness is similar and for some people even better. I do find it amusing that people downvoted my earlier comment. People don't even have a grasp that their life isn't very special when something can simply just repeat it all again. It already happened, why not again, and when the maybe first iteration was possible?
Konohamaru 6y ago
> On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy: "This ain't bad. I can be comfortable anywhere." "You can?" said Billy. On the ninth day the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were: "You think this is bad? This ain't bad.
ta1234567890 6y ago
It doesn't seem like the author fully or directly addressed the title "how to live with dying". In any case, the quickest shortcut I know of is to take some psilocybin and think about death. With the proper set and setting, dying will feel normal, as it is, just another part of life. Yoga, meditation and breathing are also great ways to achieve that kind of consciousness state. By the way, probably the biggest issue with dying is that in most western cultures it has become a huge taboo, which is kind of ridiculous given we all are going to die at some point. Death should be something that we accept and welcome, not something that we fear and reject. That doesn't mean we should seek death, just that it is one of the most natural things in life.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ReactiveJelly 6y ago
  > in most western cultures it has become a huge tabu ... Death should be something that we accept and welcome, not something that we fear and reject. I don't love every part of "Midnight Gospel" - There's a lot of pseudoscience in it - But I liked episode 7 [1] when he interviewed Caitlin Doughty. [2] "Caitlin Marie Doughty (born August 19, 1984) is an American mortician, author, blogger, and YouTube personality known for advocating death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral industry practices" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_gospel#Episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_gospel#Episodes [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Doughty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Doughty
- harwoodleon 6y ago
  Death is part of life, so is some element of suffering and pain, but neither are desirable. I don’t really subscribe to the “death is natural” idea. It’s certainly not a taboo for me, but my experience of life is the ultimate natural high and sure when it has gone I won’t be here to mourn the loss. But you can be upset (naturally so) and grieve for what you will lose, by knowing your life will be cut short or the shared future you have lost when someone you love dies. Without that capacity, we would lose the precious ability to imagine a better life. Hope is the feeling that takes us out of absurdity. Hope that one day the nature of the universe will be understood.
stanrivers 6y ago
Cicero talks about how you can get comfortable with the fact that you eventually won’t be around in his On Old Age... he says the key is making a positive, meaningful impact. If you do that, then even if you die, your positive influence lives beyond your own years. “The actor, for instance, to please his audience need not appear in every act to the very end; it is enough if he is approved in the parts in which he plays; and so it is not necessary for the wise man to stay on this mortal stage to the last fall of the curtain. For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well... But somehow, my soul was ever on the alert, looking forward to posterity, as if it realized that when it had departed from this life, then at last would it be alive.” Summary of Cicero’s On Old Age here as well: https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-age https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-ag...
- copperx 6y ago
  If you were raised by good parents, you will feel their contributions benefiting your life long after they are dead. And if you have children, you will probably pass it on. The effect of a life can last for generations. That's why they say family is more important than work. Your work will probably not outlive you, unless you're a rockstar scientist or lucky businessperson. That famous Feynman's letter to his friend was right.
  - stanrivers 6y ago
    Oh wow, I didn’t know about the letter referenced in context here - I’ll go find it. Mostly everything by Feynman is worth reading.
blueridge 6y ago
An excerpt from In the Shadow of Tomorrow, The Worship of Life, by Johan Huizinga: The obsession with life is to be viewed as a manifestation of excessive full-bloodedness, to remain in the terminology of the life-philosophy. Through the technical perfection of all comforts of life, the in every way increased security of life, the greater accessibility of all types of pleasure, and the vast and still lingering growth of material prosperity, society has got into a state which in the old pathology might have been called a “plethora.” We have been living in spiritual and material superabundance. We are so preoccupied with life because it is made so easy for us. The ever-growing power of observation and the facility of intellectual communication have made life strong and bold. Till well into the middle of the nineteenth century even the well-to-do section of European society was in more more direct and constant contact with miseries of existence than we are today and think our due. Our own grandfathers were given only very limited possibilities of killing pain, healing wounds or fractures, shutting out cold, expelling darkness, communicating with others directly or indirectly, avoiding filth and stench. On all sides man was continually made to feel the natural limitations of earthly well-being. The efficient ministering of the technical, hygienic and sanitary appliances with which man has surrounded himself is spoiling him. He is losing the good-humored resignation in the daily imperfections of human well-being which formed the disciple of earlier generations. But at the same time he runs the risk of losing the natural ability to take human happiness as it offers itself, as well. Life is made too easy. Mankind’s moral fiber is giving way under the softening influence of luxury. In earlier civilizations, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or any other, there was always this in contrast: in principle the value of earthly happiness is deprecated relatively to celestial bliss or union with the All. As all these religions, however, do recognize a relative worth of early pleasures, and consider them as God-given, denial of the value of life meant ingratitude. It was the very realization of the precariousness of every moment of human well-being which caused it to be appreciated at its true value. In the present there is a contrast also, but it is a very different one. The increase of security, of comfort, and of the possibilities of want-gratification, in short the greater ease of living has had two results: On the one hand, it has prepared the soil for all forms of renunciation of life: philosophical denial of its value, purely emotive spleen or aversion from life; on the other, it has installed the belief in the right to happiness. It has made people expect things from life. Related to this there is another contrast. The ambivalent attitude which wavers between the renunciation and the enjoyment of life is peculiar to the individual alone. The community, however, without hesitation and with more conviction than ever before, accepts earthly life as the object of all striving and action. It is indeed a true worship of life. Now it is a question for serious consideration whether any advanced culture can survive without a certain measure of orientation to Death. The great civilizations of the past have all had it. There are signs that the philosophical thought of today is also coming to it. It seems only logical, more over, that a philosophy which rates “living” above “knowing” should also include the end of life in its vision.
smoyer 6y ago
My 15 year-old cousin collapsed during the half-time of a basketball game and died - in a time before AEDs were so prevalent. This sent my aunt and uncle on a quest to make sure there were AEDs anywhere people congregated. To date, there have been many lives saved due to their efforts. If you care to donate, go to https://gregaed.com https://gregaed.com. If you need help getting an AED for a location that should have one, there are discounts and in some cases funding available as well.
mncharity 6y ago
> the lies we frequently tell our loved ones, our children, our coworkers, ourselves for the sake of genuine happiness. Are these lies morally problematic? [...] such half-truths are not only permissible but required in the living of a virtuous life. One argument against lies, is they undermine people's thoughtful engagement with the world. To an uncontrollable extent. Given the story, this paragraph on honesty for me has a flavor of "here is one root cause my life's difficulties... but I'm not yet ready to face that or change". Though he does emphasize the topic (eg, '"John, you with me?" I think I nodded. It was a lie.'), so maybe WIP?
abnry 6y ago
Oh wow, I took an intro to philosophy class with this guy. I started getting suspicious when he referred to himself as John and that he taught Camus. He's a good teacher. What I learned in that class has stuck with me. It was a disproportionately influential class. It didn't change any of my beliefs, but the different philosophies I learned meant a lot.
twooclock 6y ago
Couple of years ago I fell into anaphylactic shock. As I was passing out I remember cozy warmth and divine calm. I made my peace and was feeling happy. I remember thinking that's it. Thank's god arenalin shot brought me back. Not sure that was close to dying but I sure have no fear.
euix 6y ago
Atheism, or a disbelief in a lack of an afterlife is as much a belief system as theism. There is no way to prove it one way or the other, so I still caution against subscribing to such a hardcore position. Especially because that afterlife does not need to be immediately after death but could be in the far future, but you would have no concept of time until then. I don't see why it's so fantastical to think that it's possible that eventually a sufficiently powerful computing system will be developed in the far future and we will all be recreated in simulation in it, from which in our own perspective it will seem and be for all practical purposes an afterlife. In fact maybe the eschatological doctrines of many world religions throughout history is just to motivate mankind to reach such a technological state and then effective "revive the dead".
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Famously, after the Greeks triumphed, the soldier-messenger Philippides set off at a run toward Athens to announce the good news, covering the roughly 25 miles without a break. When he arrived at the Greek assembly, he burst into the chamber, exclaimed, “We have won!,” and died on the spot. That doesn't really do justice to the story. First he ran more like 150 miles to request assistance to help them combat an invading force. The 25 or 26 miles he ran before dying was the tail end of a much more epic effort. I made my peace with my mortality in my thirties when I spent a year at death's door. And then, silly me, tried to share that with people in online discussions and it didn't go like I expected. One day, someone older than me more or less told me "You are scaring people because they haven't yet made their peace with their own mortality." Stories like this can be a good thing to write for the author. It can be a therapeutic process that helps them get unstuck from a big emotional experience and move on and live more in the present with the time they have left. And it can be experientially valuable to the reader. It can be interesting to read of the subjective experience of coming that close to dying and what that looks and feels like to this one person who stood that close to the void and didn't quite fall in. But stories like this are unlikely to help most people come to terms with their own mortality -- though if you, also, find yourself standing on the precipice or having recently come back from it, stories like this may be especially meaningful and valuable. But for those who haven't spent time anywhere near the precipice, this is highly unlikely to be some means to deliver enlightenment or some such. How you relate to a piece like this will have a lot to do with where you are in life and where you have been.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I can empathize with the readers of your previous story. I haven't made peace and often when I see stories of people younger than me dying I reach in every direction for an explanation for why that wouldn't happen to me. "Oh they must have done a lot of drugs. They must have not exercised." etc. What I think I want to know about from older individuals (like 80+): are you afraid of dying? My grandma went last year (92) and her and I had long wonderful conversations knowing she was weeks out. She talked about how much of a wonderful life she had and that she was not in the slightest scared. That's a mental gap for me. I can't grok the concept of not being afraid to death like that. I would love to learn that the overwhelming majority of older people don't fear it, suggesting that it's very likely I won't fear it either if I make it to old age. As for dying early... I think it's best not to think about it any more than to build a sufficient motivation to live life well.
coned88 6y ago
Can somebody explain the takeaway with Camus in this? I can't seem to understand it.

144 points by exolymph 6y ago

Lately there's been quite a few articles on HN about cancer, death and a variety of subjects regarding mortality. I read all of them, and the HN comments as well. Plus, ever since having a kid, I've begun to appreciate living more and more.

xwdv 6y ago
This year all the world seems to be in a dying mood. As the new decade begins in 2021, we can only imagine a grim dark future.
- RalfWausE 6y ago
  What we observe at the moment is one thing that most people fear the most: Change The future seems to be grim and dark at the moment, but in the darkness, the light shines the brightest! So, lets work together to make things work, burn away the darkness and do not let our self get trapped in depression.
  - ReactiveJelly 6y ago
    What keeps me up at night is, once everything is fixed, a lot of innocents will be dead, and many who survive will not have learned the lesson.
hawkoy 6y ago
I take them positively as you but I have failed so hard at taking constructive steps to improve the situation. I keep getting sucked into negativity online and I feel I am toxic as well. I will take a break from HN and go play with my dad.
exolymph 6y ago
I think it's very important to internalize and accept one's own mortality. We need to digest the true stakes that we're dealing with.
mpfundstein 6y ago
i dont think its good for our mental.health to read all that shit.

naringas 6y ago

we gotta understand that life and death are two aspects of only one real thing. it is only our language which separates them into seemingly contrasting opposites. language is not reality, it merely has the ability to mirror reality.

xdavidliu 6y ago
the difference between "life" and "death" is greater (many would even argue significantly greater) than the difference between "different" and "two aspects of".
- naringas 6y ago
  I insist, both life and death refer to the same real underlying phenomenon of existence along time. the words are not the meaning. but I suppose I have also wound up believing that "everything" and "nothing" are more similar than one would initially guess. though not as similar as life and death.
  - s3krit 6y ago
    Love DMT, me
    - naringas 6y ago
      hallucinogens in general indeed forcefully show one things like this. but it's really about realizing and acknowledging a separation between what we are, our language, and the way in which the elements of language (symbols-vocabulary) are representations distinct from what they represent, with this, one can realize that life and death, while distinct concepts within language, are in fact aspects of a whole which cannot be logically fitted into languages such as ours.
  - xdavidliu 6y ago
    what about "different" and "two aspects of"? Are those two phrases also two aspects of the same thing, or are they distinguishable in some way?

momokoko 6y ago

This is some white people shit

Ninjinka 6y ago

One enormous advantage many of the religious have in terms of mentally coping with life is that they don't believe they will ever truly die. Hats off to those who find motivation to live without that.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
As someone who was once religious, I can tell you at at least for me, this never really dealt with existential dread. Maybe I just didn't believe hard enough. But it stands to reason that thoughts of the afterlife do not do much: religious people do not seem, in the main, to have significantly less fear or avoidance of death. The drive to live would be pretty anemic if a mere mental trick could defuse it. Personally, now that I'm secular, I still fear death. But at least I understand that that fear only exists because of my built in neurobiological values, which are there because they helped my ancestors reproduce. That doesn't really change things much either, but at least it's a true explanation. Before there was always a cognitive dissonance: if things are going to be way way better after we die, why do we try so hard to avoid death?
- abnry 6y ago
  I remain deeply religious, and there is something of a fear of death, but it is mostly related to the fear of the unknown. I believe I will see God face to face and that's kind of terrifying. I am honestly more afraid of pain than death. Any religious faith is a faith, even though people like to suggest silly arguments that faith necessarily is blind or unbounded, but it is still a hope in something unseen.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    How do you choose your supernatural beliefs? Why not choose more fun ones, like that God is a loving cool dude to hang out with?
    - abnry 6y ago
      I mean, do you have any knowledge of Christianity and its history? Not sure if you are sincere.

abhinav22 6y ago

The beauty of life is in its mortality. Enjoy every moment on earth and with your loved ones, cherish what you do with them and rest peacefully that you lived a full life. That’s how I try and get over the depressing fact that all my loved ones and myself will be no more one day.

ivalm 6y ago
Beauty of life is not mortality. We mostly live in the moment, if involuntary death wasn’t an issue (and everything else was similar) then life would be subjectively better.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  Maybe to some. I really wouldn't want to live for hundreds of years. Eventually everything gets boring.
  - ivalm 6y ago
    That’s why I said involuntary death. I am all for voluntary death.
  - TaupeRanger 6y ago
    You don't know that. Most old people who are ready to die would think much differently if their peers and loved ones also lived longer. The rest of them would rather continue living. "I actually really do want to die eventually" sounds a lot like Stockholm Syndrome.
- kls 6y ago
  I don't believe it would and I think Steve Jobs summed it up better than I could on the subject "Death is very likely the single best invention of life". It puts pressure on us and if we take the correct view of death it empowers us into action. It's funny I don't really fear death and I don't really understand the existential crisis that people have over it. I do however understand that living forever in this existence would soon grow old. All of my ancestors have lived for unusually long lengths of time. Most of them going to 100-110 years of age. My last great grandparent died when I was 30, until 2013 all of my grandparents were alive. The reason I bring this up, is none of them where in fear of what was coming after nearly a century on this earth they were ready to go. My last great grandfather was 107 when he passed, he was diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer. The doc told him it could be treated and that even at his age his chances of survival where close to 90%. He looked at the doc and said WTF are you going to give me 5 years? I am 107 years old, my wife has been dead for several years, I am going home to die. You see he saw death as mercy from a long life and the older I get the more I understand that. If there is something after and it is eternal then I would think it would be of a vastly different nature than the life we experience now. Simply put we are not designed mentally or physically to live forever. Now I have faith there is something else, and I believe that this existence is a learning experience along that path and one of those core lessons is learned via death and that is on our own left to our own devices immortal existence is a futile endeavor. I think that is pretty apparent just looking of the last two centuries of human strife and the state of current affairs. Without death, life would just be a default not something to appreciate and enjoy, it would be taken for granted and our very nature would be different. I have the benefit of if I am wrong well then I am just dead. Either way I am OK with the outcome, because I really have no choice in the matter. Worrying about it only distracts from what we should be doing and that is living in the time we have. As a side note, I am not trying to be somber and I enjoy living, but living for eternity in this reality, based on what I have seen just in my lifetime, seems like a hell and not something I would strive for.

exolymph 6y ago

"On and on you will go, making sense of the world, forming notions of order, and being surprised in ways large and small by their failure, forever." — Albert Burneko on Wile E. Coyote: https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-wile-e-coyote-explains-the-world-1752248034 https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-wile-e-coyote-explains...

andrewstuart 6y ago

On the topic of how overexercise can damage the heart by James OKeefe, a cardiologist and lifetime obsessive runner: Notably he points out that they tested people blood after doing long distance events and found that many of them had chemicals usually found in heart attack victims, indicating heart damage. Basically he says that the long term overexercise/heart damage means the heart muscle constantly has microtears which heal up and the healed tissue is scar tissue which is hard and not like normal heart tissue - much harder and less elastic. So people who overtrain end up with a heart much older than their physical age. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0 Transcript: https://singjupost.com/run-for-your-life-at-a-comfortable-pace-and-not-too-far-by-james-okeefe-transcript/ https://singjupost.com/run-for-your-life-at-a-comfortable-pa... Another video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8eEYwtfSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8eEYwtfSo And from another author on extreme exercise and the heart: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/extreme-exercise-and-the-heart https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/extreme-...

nostromo 6y ago
All of the science I've been seeing lately in this area seem to say, 1. short-term high-intensity training (sprints, for example) and 2. weightlifting are the best forms of exercise for general health. Running marathons and the like do not seem to promote health and can actually harm the body. And anecdotally, I've known a few folks that are obsessive long-distance runners and cyclists, and they physically look older than others in their age group.
- boyband6666 6y ago
  If you are training properly at running however, then you are doing high intensity exercise. The track repeats, the hill reps, they are that high intensity interval training, with easier runs the rest of the time. The idea that running is just shuffling along at a steady pace is a straw man, and looks nothing like what actual runners do!
  - nostromo 6y ago

cblconfederate 6y ago

there's one worthy goal in life, and that's curing death, or alternatively, merging with a machine. The essence of our existence is the informational structure in our brains , and it's the only entity with agency in the universe. Moral views of death invariably assume there is another one, even if it is "the benign indifference of the universe", as camus said. The universe doesnt have indifference, and it can't help because in fact it doesnt exist, only my brain exists.

smallnamespace 6y ago
On the other hand, curing death would cause many societal problems. If you think the current amount of wealth inequality is bad, just wait until the young need to compete against generations of immortals who have accumulated hundreds of years of assets and interest.
- ausbah 6y ago
  the book / show Altered Carbon does a good portrayal of this. defacto immortality has been created, but with it still being inaccessible to much of society even after hundreds of years.
xarthna 6y ago
I'm not sure I understand what you are stating here. The universe does in fact exist. When _your_ brain ceases to exist the universe will still be here, and my brain's interpretation of that universe is my consciousness.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  i mean a universe with agency or any human-like properties. And more generally, we can't really know if the universe exists outside of us. We are limited to perceive that there exist regularities in the information content that our brains exchange with each other.

abellerose 6y ago

You've lived a privileged life if you fear death. In any case we've never experienced nothingness and so I find it odd that people even assume it something to be concerned about. Universe very well could just repeat all the variables again for your experiences to happen and maybe even slightly different depending on the iteration.

throwaways885 6y ago
A nice hope, but even if true, it's not one that affects me by definition.
- abellerose 6y ago
  Not really a hope but just a theory. Nothingness is similar and for some people even better. I do find it amusing that people downvoted my earlier comment. People don't even have a grasp that their life isn't very special when something can simply just repeat it all again. It already happened, why not again, and when the maybe first iteration was possible?

Konohamaru 6y ago

> On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy: "This ain't bad. I can be comfortable anywhere." "You can?" said Billy. On the ninth day the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were: "You think this is bad? This ain't bad.

ta1234567890 6y ago

It doesn't seem like the author fully or directly addressed the title "how to live with dying". In any case, the quickest shortcut I know of is to take some psilocybin and think about death. With the proper set and setting, dying will feel normal, as it is, just another part of life. Yoga, meditation and breathing are also great ways to achieve that kind of consciousness state. By the way, probably the biggest issue with dying is that in most western cultures it has become a huge taboo, which is kind of ridiculous given we all are going to die at some point. Death should be something that we accept and welcome, not something that we fear and reject. That doesn't mean we should seek death, just that it is one of the most natural things in life.

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ReactiveJelly 6y ago
> in most western cultures it has become a huge tabu ... Death should be something that we accept and welcome, not something that we fear and reject. I don't love every part of "Midnight Gospel" - There's a lot of pseudoscience in it - But I liked episode 7 [1] when he interviewed Caitlin Doughty. [2] "Caitlin Marie Doughty (born August 19, 1984) is an American mortician, author, blogger, and YouTube personality known for advocating death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral industry practices" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_gospel#Episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_gospel#Episodes [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Doughty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Doughty
harwoodleon 6y ago
Death is part of life, so is some element of suffering and pain, but neither are desirable. I don’t really subscribe to the “death is natural” idea. It’s certainly not a taboo for me, but my experience of life is the ultimate natural high and sure when it has gone I won’t be here to mourn the loss. But you can be upset (naturally so) and grieve for what you will lose, by knowing your life will be cut short or the shared future you have lost when someone you love dies. Without that capacity, we would lose the precious ability to imagine a better life. Hope is the feeling that takes us out of absurdity. Hope that one day the nature of the universe will be understood.

stanrivers 6y ago

Cicero talks about how you can get comfortable with the fact that you eventually won’t be around in his On Old Age... he says the key is making a positive, meaningful impact. If you do that, then even if you die, your positive influence lives beyond your own years. “The actor, for instance, to please his audience need not appear in every act to the very end; it is enough if he is approved in the parts in which he plays; and so it is not necessary for the wise man to stay on this mortal stage to the last fall of the curtain. For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well... But somehow, my soul was ever on the alert, looking forward to posterity, as if it realized that when it had departed from this life, then at last would it be alive.” Summary of Cicero’s On Old Age here as well: https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-age https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-on-old-ag...

copperx 6y ago
If you were raised by good parents, you will feel their contributions benefiting your life long after they are dead. And if you have children, you will probably pass it on. The effect of a life can last for generations. That's why they say family is more important than work. Your work will probably not outlive you, unless you're a rockstar scientist or lucky businessperson. That famous Feynman's letter to his friend was right.
- stanrivers 6y ago
  Oh wow, I didn’t know about the letter referenced in context here - I’ll go find it. Mostly everything by Feynman is worth reading.

blueridge 6y ago

An excerpt from In the Shadow of Tomorrow, The Worship of Life, by Johan Huizinga: The obsession with life is to be viewed as a manifestation of excessive full-bloodedness, to remain in the terminology of the life-philosophy. Through the technical perfection of all comforts of life, the in every way increased security of life, the greater accessibility of all types of pleasure, and the vast and still lingering growth of material prosperity, society has got into a state which in the old pathology might have been called a “plethora.” We have been living in spiritual and material superabundance. We are so preoccupied with life because it is made so easy for us. The ever-growing power of observation and the facility of intellectual communication have made life strong and bold. Till well into the middle of the nineteenth century even the well-to-do section of European society was in more more direct and constant contact with miseries of existence than we are today and think our due. Our own grandfathers were given only very limited possibilities of killing pain, healing wounds or fractures, shutting out cold, expelling darkness, communicating with others directly or indirectly, avoiding filth and stench. On all sides man was continually made to feel the natural limitations of earthly well-being. The efficient ministering of the technical, hygienic and sanitary appliances with which man has surrounded himself is spoiling him. He is losing the good-humored resignation in the daily imperfections of human well-being which formed the disciple of earlier generations. But at the same time he runs the risk of losing the natural ability to take human happiness as it offers itself, as well. Life is made too easy. Mankind’s moral fiber is giving way under the softening influence of luxury. In earlier civilizations, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or any other, there was always this in contrast: in principle the value of earthly happiness is deprecated relatively to celestial bliss or union with the All. As all these religions, however, do recognize a relative worth of early pleasures, and consider them as God-given, denial of the value of life meant ingratitude. It was the very realization of the precariousness of every moment of human well-being which caused it to be appreciated at its true value. In the present there is a contrast also, but it is a very different one. The increase of security, of comfort, and of the possibilities of want-gratification, in short the greater ease of living has had two results: On the one hand, it has prepared the soil for all forms of renunciation of life: philosophical denial of its value, purely emotive spleen or aversion from life; on the other, it has installed the belief in the right to happiness. It has made people expect things from life. Related to this there is another contrast. The ambivalent attitude which wavers between the renunciation and the enjoyment of life is peculiar to the individual alone. The community, however, without hesitation and with more conviction than ever before, accepts earthly life as the object of all striving and action. It is indeed a true worship of life. Now it is a question for serious consideration whether any advanced culture can survive without a certain measure of orientation to Death. The great civilizations of the past have all had it. There are signs that the philosophical thought of today is also coming to it. It seems only logical, more over, that a philosophy which rates “living” above “knowing” should also include the end of life in its vision.

smoyer 6y ago

My 15 year-old cousin collapsed during the half-time of a basketball game and died - in a time before AEDs were so prevalent. This sent my aunt and uncle on a quest to make sure there were AEDs anywhere people congregated. To date, there have been many lives saved due to their efforts. If you care to donate, go to https://gregaed.com https://gregaed.com. If you need help getting an AED for a location that should have one, there are discounts and in some cases funding available as well.

mncharity 6y ago

> the lies we frequently tell our loved ones, our children, our coworkers, ourselves for the sake of genuine happiness. Are these lies morally problematic? [...] such half-truths are not only permissible but required in the living of a virtuous life. One argument against lies, is they undermine people's thoughtful engagement with the world. To an uncontrollable extent. Given the story, this paragraph on honesty for me has a flavor of "here is one root cause my life's difficulties... but I'm not yet ready to face that or change". Though he does emphasize the topic (eg, '"John, you with me?" I think I nodded. It was a lie.'), so maybe WIP?

abnry 6y ago

Oh wow, I took an intro to philosophy class with this guy. I started getting suspicious when he referred to himself as John and that he taught Camus. He's a good teacher. What I learned in that class has stuck with me. It was a disproportionately influential class. It didn't change any of my beliefs, but the different philosophies I learned meant a lot.

twooclock 6y ago

Couple of years ago I fell into anaphylactic shock. As I was passing out I remember cozy warmth and divine calm. I made my peace and was feeling happy. I remember thinking that's it. Thank's god arenalin shot brought me back. Not sure that was close to dying but I sure have no fear.

euix 6y ago

Atheism, or a disbelief in a lack of an afterlife is as much a belief system as theism. There is no way to prove it one way or the other, so I still caution against subscribing to such a hardcore position. Especially because that afterlife does not need to be immediately after death but could be in the far future, but you would have no concept of time until then. I don't see why it's so fantastical to think that it's possible that eventually a sufficiently powerful computing system will be developed in the far future and we will all be recreated in simulation in it, from which in our own perspective it will seem and be for all practical purposes an afterlife. In fact maybe the eschatological doctrines of many world religions throughout history is just to motivate mankind to reach such a technological state and then effective "revive the dead".

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Famously, after the Greeks triumphed, the soldier-messenger Philippides set off at a run toward Athens to announce the good news, covering the roughly 25 miles without a break. When he arrived at the Greek assembly, he burst into the chamber, exclaimed, “We have won!,” and died on the spot. That doesn't really do justice to the story. First he ran more like 150 miles to request assistance to help them combat an invading force. The 25 or 26 miles he ran before dying was the tail end of a much more epic effort. I made my peace with my mortality in my thirties when I spent a year at death's door. And then, silly me, tried to share that with people in online discussions and it didn't go like I expected. One day, someone older than me more or less told me "You are scaring people because they haven't yet made their peace with their own mortality." Stories like this can be a good thing to write for the author. It can be a therapeutic process that helps them get unstuck from a big emotional experience and move on and live more in the present with the time they have left. And it can be experientially valuable to the reader. It can be interesting to read of the subjective experience of coming that close to dying and what that looks and feels like to this one person who stood that close to the void and didn't quite fall in. But stories like this are unlikely to help most people come to terms with their own mortality -- though if you, also, find yourself standing on the precipice or having recently come back from it, stories like this may be especially meaningful and valuable. But for those who haven't spent time anywhere near the precipice, this is highly unlikely to be some means to deliver enlightenment or some such. How you relate to a piece like this will have a lot to do with where you are in life and where you have been.

Waterluvian 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. I can empathize with the readers of your previous story. I haven't made peace and often when I see stories of people younger than me dying I reach in every direction for an explanation for why that wouldn't happen to me. "Oh they must have done a lot of drugs. They must have not exercised." etc. What I think I want to know about from older individuals (like 80+): are you afraid of dying? My grandma went last year (92) and her and I had long wonderful conversations knowing she was weeks out. She talked about how much of a wonderful life she had and that she was not in the slightest scared. That's a mental gap for me. I can't grok the concept of not being afraid to death like that. I would love to learn that the overwhelming majority of older people don't fear it, suggesting that it's very likely I won't fear it either if I make it to old age. As for dying early... I think it's best not to think about it any more than to build a sufficient motivation to live life well.

coned88 6y ago

Can somebody explain the takeaway with Camus in this? I can't seem to understand it.