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Brilliant. I've been obsessed with death since a close family member had a heart attack (and lived). In your twenties, with any luck, you will not get acquainte

Brilliant. I've been obsessed with death since a close family member had a heart attack (and lived). In your twenties, with any luck, you will not get acquainted as intimately with loss as you will later in life. But when you do, everything else seems immaterial in the face of, as John Mellencamp put it, us standing "on this single print of time". It gives you a panic, an anxiety, about climbing the wrong ladder, about not having enough time for climbing multiple ladders, but most of all, about time running out for your parents and grandparents. This article helps me realise that perhaps with enough brute force, one may yet come to accept finiteness.

marginalia_nu 5y ago
If I might suggest, you may enjoy reading Seneca. He lived under a death threat while he wrote, and wrote a lot about death and mortality. One of my favorite observations of his is that we are dying every day. Death stalks behind us and claims every moment that passes, whether well spent or squandered. Our final hour is not when we die, but the point where we finally stop dying. Our lives are a bit like that of a candle, whether burning intensely or barely at all, every moment that passes is a moment that we are approaching the point where we run out of wax.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
If you like existential dread, you might also like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558. (I am become the Amazon of philosophy.) I don’t think any of us can accept finiteness. At least not without descending into a spiral of “But then what’s the point?” from which there is no escape without fooling yourself or abandoning the question.
- foobarian 5y ago
  I have come to believe in reincarnation just through argument by existence and limits; namely clearly we exist in this incarnation after however long, finite time that took, and therefore after death given enough time this will happen again and it doesn't matter how long that is since we're not conscious through it anyway. The bummer is that the state is not preserved.
  - pstuart 5y ago
    A short read you might enjoy: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      Only saw recently someone pointed out The Egg is written by Andy Weir (The Martian, Project Hail Mary). Similar idea of being dead for a long time then reincarnated appears in the short story Divided By Infinity: https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/ https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/
      - pstuart 5y ago
        I fell in love with the story when I first encountered it. I didn't realize who the author was for a long time (but it stands on its own).
      - generalizations 5y ago
        The idea also shows up as a side note in one of the Culture series novels.
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        Someone made a really good 8 minute animated video of The Egg: https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    I will also need my OLED TV set when I am reincarnated.
  - awb 5y ago
    > clearly we exist in this incarnation after however long, finite time that took, and therefore after death given enough time this will happen again Am I understanding you that you believe that because you went from non-existence to existence once you think it will happen again? Why? I understand reincarnation as a faith based belief (that can’t be proven or disproven) but I don’t understand it as a rational argument. Nothing in life I know of is destined to repeat.
xupybd 5y ago
This week I've witnessed three people die. Two men drowned on Sunday. I jumped in but failed to get them out. They died less than a meter from me. On Thursday my father passed away from cancer. I was with him in his last breaths. Life is so fragile but it's going to end for all of us. Live as much as you can while you have health. Cherish the people in your life. We are but a vapor in the wind. I'm so thankful for my time so far, I'm thankful for my Dad and miss him so much. I'm so sad for the men that died. My hope for their family is that they can go on living without them.
- ultramegachurch 5y ago
  I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your father. Do you mind expanding on the story of watching the two men drown? I'm curious how you found yourself in that situation.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Sure, here is something I wrote in an earlier comment the day after it happened. "Yesterday we took our two dogs to the river for a walk. Two men got into trouble in the water, I jumped in to help. All I could do was help another man get free of one of the drowning men. The fellow rescuer couldn't breathe with the panicking man grabbing him and the current pulling them both under. If I'd been first too them I'm sure I'd be dead as the other rescuer was in much better shape than me. So I helped a man get free of another man's desperate struggle for life. I watched as two men died a few meters from me. In front of their family. A woman asked my wife why we weren't helping them. It was her husband and father. The water was too dangerous, the men too panicked, and I was too unfit. Emergency services recovered three bodies from that river. A woman and her daughter had drowned in the same spot a week ago. The woman's body was found by the divers looking for the two men." Here is a new article about the event. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/01/three-bodies-recovered-from-manawat-river-in-one-day-including-missing-refugee-mother.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/01/three-bod...
    - throwaway6734 5y ago
Koshkin 5y ago
Being "obsessed" with non-existence - yours or someone else's - is weird. The only thing I could draw from the idea of death (as the end of existence) is that you need to make the most of your life, while it lasts, and help others do the same.
- awb 5y ago
  Non-existence is one of the most profound qualities of existence itself IMO. I don’t think it’s weird to be fascinated by it, or to continue to be mystified by it without drawing the same conclusions you have.
  - onecommentman 5y ago
    Perhaps the end of physical existence as you think of it is not the end. It would be comforting for most if true, and difficult to validate while alive, but those facts alone don’t mean “surviving what is thought as physical death” is just a fairy tale. One constant across human (and animal) cultures across millennia is survival after “death”. Our brains are probably inadequate to conceive what that might be…hence the mystery. But we may be more than our physical wetware…that may be worth exploring. It would also mean you’re not getting out of your own mess via “death” that easily. :-)
    - awb 5y ago
      > One constant across human (and animal) cultures across millennia is survival after “death”. In what animal cultures?
    - Koshkin 5y ago
      > we may be more than our physical wetware The hard science tells that we are not. Poke at a person’s brain, and their personality will change. You don’t even need to die in order to cease to exist in the sense that matters to you personally and to those around you.

marginalia_nu 5y ago

If I might suggest, you may enjoy reading Seneca. He lived under a death threat while he wrote, and wrote a lot about death and mortality. One of my favorite observations of his is that we are dying every day. Death stalks behind us and claims every moment that passes, whether well spent or squandered. Our final hour is not when we die, but the point where we finally stop dying. Our lives are a bit like that of a candle, whether burning intensely or barely at all, every moment that passes is a moment that we are approaching the point where we run out of wax.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

If you like existential dread, you might also like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558. (I am become the Amazon of philosophy.) I don’t think any of us can accept finiteness. At least not without descending into a spiral of “But then what’s the point?” from which there is no escape without fooling yourself or abandoning the question.

foobarian 5y ago
I have come to believe in reincarnation just through argument by existence and limits; namely clearly we exist in this incarnation after however long, finite time that took, and therefore after death given enough time this will happen again and it doesn't matter how long that is since we're not conscious through it anyway. The bummer is that the state is not preserved.
- pstuart 5y ago
  A short read you might enjoy: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    Only saw recently someone pointed out The Egg is written by Andy Weir (The Martian, Project Hail Mary). Similar idea of being dead for a long time then reincarnated appears in the short story Divided By Infinity: https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/ https://www.tor.com/2010/08/05/divided-by-infinity/
    - pstuart 5y ago
      I fell in love with the story when I first encountered it. I didn't realize who the author was for a long time (but it stands on its own).
    - generalizations 5y ago
      The idea also shows up as a side note in one of the Culture series novels.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      Someone made a really good 8 minute animated video of The Egg: https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI
- Koshkin 5y ago
  I will also need my OLED TV set when I am reincarnated.
- awb 5y ago
  > clearly we exist in this incarnation after however long, finite time that took, and therefore after death given enough time this will happen again Am I understanding you that you believe that because you went from non-existence to existence once you think it will happen again? Why? I understand reincarnation as a faith based belief (that can’t be proven or disproven) but I don’t understand it as a rational argument. Nothing in life I know of is destined to repeat.

xupybd 5y ago

This week I've witnessed three people die. Two men drowned on Sunday. I jumped in but failed to get them out. They died less than a meter from me. On Thursday my father passed away from cancer. I was with him in his last breaths. Life is so fragile but it's going to end for all of us. Live as much as you can while you have health. Cherish the people in your life. We are but a vapor in the wind. I'm so thankful for my time so far, I'm thankful for my Dad and miss him so much. I'm so sad for the men that died. My hope for their family is that they can go on living without them.

ultramegachurch 5y ago
I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your father. Do you mind expanding on the story of watching the two men drown? I'm curious how you found yourself in that situation.
- xupybd 5y ago
  Sure, here is something I wrote in an earlier comment the day after it happened. "Yesterday we took our two dogs to the river for a walk. Two men got into trouble in the water, I jumped in to help. All I could do was help another man get free of one of the drowning men. The fellow rescuer couldn't breathe with the panicking man grabbing him and the current pulling them both under. If I'd been first too them I'm sure I'd be dead as the other rescuer was in much better shape than me. So I helped a man get free of another man's desperate struggle for life. I watched as two men died a few meters from me. In front of their family. A woman asked my wife why we weren't helping them. It was her husband and father. The water was too dangerous, the men too panicked, and I was too unfit. Emergency services recovered three bodies from that river. A woman and her daughter had drowned in the same spot a week ago. The woman's body was found by the divers looking for the two men." Here is a new article about the event. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/01/three-bodies-recovered-from-manawat-river-in-one-day-including-missing-refugee-mother.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/01/three-bod...
  - throwaway6734 5y ago

Koshkin 5y ago

Being "obsessed" with non-existence - yours or someone else's - is weird. The only thing I could draw from the idea of death (as the end of existence) is that you need to make the most of your life, while it lasts, and help others do the same.

awb 5y ago
Non-existence is one of the most profound qualities of existence itself IMO. I don’t think it’s weird to be fascinated by it, or to continue to be mystified by it without drawing the same conclusions you have.
- onecommentman 5y ago
  Perhaps the end of physical existence as you think of it is not the end. It would be comforting for most if true, and difficult to validate while alive, but those facts alone don’t mean “surviving what is thought as physical death” is just a fairy tale. One constant across human (and animal) cultures across millennia is survival after “death”. Our brains are probably inadequate to conceive what that might be…hence the mystery. But we may be more than our physical wetware…that may be worth exploring. It would also mean you’re not getting out of your own mess via “death” that easily. :-)
  - awb 5y ago
    > One constant across human (and animal) cultures across millennia is survival after “death”. In what animal cultures?
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    > we may be more than our physical wetware The hard science tells that we are not. Poke at a person’s brain, and their personality will change. You don’t even need to die in order to cease to exist in the sense that matters to you personally and to those around you.