8 ms·
I have seen the opposite effect in my grandmother. She is definitely not on a mission. She just wants to live as long as she could, despite outliving pretty muc
by journey_16162 5y ago
I have seen the opposite effect in my grandmother. She is definitely not on a mission. She just wants to live as long as she could, despite outliving pretty much everyone her age group and also her children. She's never been saying "when I'm gone..." or stuff like that, like it was not a possibility. But she often liked to say to other people something along "don't do this or you will die" - i.e. "don't work too hard because you will die". People much younger than her. Never said something like that in context of herself. The only exception is recently, after my father's death she asked my mother: "will you take care of my funeral?" but then she shortly added "if you live long enough that is" or something like that. My mom is 58 and grandma is 93.
I think it's a bit like ego thing and positive feedback loop. She takes pride in her longevity.
- BoiledCabbage 5y ago> I think it's a bit like ego thing and positive feedback loop. She takes pride in her longevity. Sounds like she has a mission.
- Swizec 5y agoHopefully I’m like your grandma. My phrasing (since beating a severe teen depression) has always been “If I ever die …” At 34, if I get rich enough in the next 30 years, it may in fact become optional. That would be cool
- salmonfamine 5y agoI hope everyone on this planet dies. No one should live forever.
- laborat 5y agoWhy not?
- hackingthelema 5y agoThat's a pretty grim statement. You want everyone to die? Would you mind unpacking this a bit? I'd like this material existence I am currently experiencing to have no end (i.e., I hope I never die), so this comes as a shock. I can understand not wanting yourself to live forever, but wanting everyone to die?
- joconde 5y agoLiving forever might not be that fun. People we know would still die for accidental reasons all the time. Maybe we can't cope with that for centuries or millennia and morale starts to take hits after a while.
- hackingthelema 5y agoI never said anything about fun. I said I don't want to ever die. 'Maybe we can't cope' sounds like a lot to take on faith. I'd rather live centuries or millenia and see for myself.
- mediocregopher 5y agoLife (with a capital "L", the entire phenomenon, not the life of an individual organism) is predicated on death and birth in order to adapt and persist. Without death there is no adaptation, without adaptation Life will perish. We humans sometimes forget we're a part of Life, but we are, and we benefit from death just as much as the rest of Life.
- hackingthelema 5y agoHumans adapt all of the time without death or birth. We call it invention and innovation.
- klipt 5y agoEver heard the phrase "science progresses one funeral at a time"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
- xvector 5y agoI don't want to be a part of your death cult. Death should be a personal choice.
- MaxfordAndSons 5y ago> I don't want to be a part of your death cult. GP said nothing about how or when they wish everyone to die. It's as banal a statement as "I wish the earth will keep spinning". If GP is in a death cult, so are the overwhelming majority of known organisms. > Death should be a personal choice. This almost sounds like a satire of Western toxic individualism taken to a supernatural extreme. To me, the pursuit of immortality looks a lot more like a death cult than the acceptance of our finitude does.
- mythrwy 5y agoEverything is transitory and impermanent and nature needs a garbage collector. I'd be surprised if people didn't have some sort of instinct to die under the right circumstances just like they have an instinct to procreate under the right circumstances. In fact I'm positive of it because people kill themselves sometimes. What a strange phenomenon that is if you think about it. I've never understood it and can't imagine wanting to end my own life but apparently the tendency exists given the right set of circumstances.
- psyc 5y agohttps://www.howardbloom.net/howard-bloom-isolation-the-ultimate-poison/ https://www.howardbloom.net/howard-bloom-isolation-the-ultim... He was Gladwell before people talked about Gladwell, so expect science-y conjecture, not science.
- fallingfrog 5y agoNobody could ever live forever no matter what happens, but we might prevent people from dying from one specific cause (old age), if they don't want to.
- arrosenberg 5y agoConversely, I have a 97 year old relative who wants nothing more than to die, and yet, nature has cruelly allowed her to linger on. When she heard Betty White died, her response was "what's her secret".
- crazynick4 5y agoMaybe she has a subconscious conviction that she will live a long time even though she doesnt want to? The mind is a tricky thing..
- arrosenberg 5y agoNope, everyone (including her) though she'd be dead within a week of her husband passing, but it's been a few years now. Married for like 75 years, since they were really young, but no kids or grandkids or anything. No one had her lasting this long.
- DFHippie 5y agoMy grandmother was getting that way toward the end of her life. She lived to be 104. More precisely, she thought she lived to 104. She died a week short of her birthday, but she thought it was her birthday. We were told she cried in the morning because her family had forgotten her birthday -- we lived in the area and would have come over. Then she didn't make it to the end of the day. This story has me wondering whether mistaking the date contributed to her death.
- mrburkins 5y agoMy sincere condolences on the loss of your father. Please take care of yourself.