5 ms·

I have been in the same boat and this is a realization that pretty much cured me: Fear of death is not rational. There is nothing like "being dead" more than t

I have been in the same boat and this is a realization that pretty much cured me: Fear of death is not rational. There is nothing like "being dead" more than there is anything like "not being born". Our anxiety of our mortality is just a cruel evolutionary accident. Feeling scared when facing possible death is an evolutionary function for making animals avoid dangers. Unfortunately for humans we got a brain that can simulate the future very well, and we can understand that we will die. These two generates our fear of death. Again, the fear we feel is not based in anything rational, since we will never experience being dead.

idle_zealot 3y ago
I don't understand this line of thinking at all. It's irrational to fear something you can't experience? That very lack of experience is the scary part.
- cambaceres 3y ago
  Why? You will not experience it. What negative is it if there is nothing? Was it scary before you where born?
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    I’m never sure if people posting like this really don’t know why, or are trying to do therapy.
    - bowsamic 3y ago
      They just don’t get it. My wife doesn’t either. She genuinely cannot grasp that I fear death at all
EZ-E 3y ago
I think it's the period before death that scares me more than the big empty void. The big empty of death triggers a bit of anxiety but the process of my health degrading is what I feel triggers the depressed feeling...
- cambaceres 3y ago
  There are really good stuff for that, like opiates and benzodiazipines.
  - zikduruqe 3y ago
    And psychedelics. https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/features/facing-death-without-fear-psychedelics--end-life-care https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/features/facing-death-...
sph 3y ago
> Fear of death is not rational. I vehemently disagree. From the human to the amoeba, avoiding death is our primary instinct. It might not make philosophical sense to fear death, but on a biological sense, it is the utmost priority, and any organism would benefit from having an innate, irrational, all-consuming fear of its life ceasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation Accepting your death is a learned behaviour, not innate. Either because you know that it will happen shortly, or because of high-order rationalisation such as meditation, reading a lot of philosophy books or believing in abstract concepts such as afterlife. It all depends on your definition of rationality: if you "think" about it, there's no reason to fear death. But if your entire physical being had a say, as it should, as we are more than just pure thought, death is the antithesis of life itself, and must be avoided at all cost.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Instincts are not rational
circlefavshape 3y ago
Aubade By Philip Larkin I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what’s really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible but how And where and when I shall myself die. Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse — The good not done, the love not given, time Torn off unused — nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says _No rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel_, not seeing That this is what we fear — no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anaesthetic from which none come round. And so it stays just on the edge of vision, A small unfocused blur, a standing chill That slows each impulse down to indecision. Most things may never happen: this one will, And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, Have always known, know that we can’t escape, Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
The_Colonel 3y ago
> Fear of death is not rational. I don't fear the "being death" part, but there are some other aspects which are more rational: * I fear the process of dying which is usually far from pleasant (in various ways) * I fear the consequences of my death. I would leave behind my wife, children, friends who will mourn. I have small children and the idea that they would miss their father gives me the biggest worries. * I fear the missed opportunities like seeing my children growing up.

idle_zealot 3y ago

I don't understand this line of thinking at all. It's irrational to fear something you can't experience? That very lack of experience is the scary part.

cambaceres 3y ago
Why? You will not experience it. What negative is it if there is nothing? Was it scary before you where born?
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I’m never sure if people posting like this really don’t know why, or are trying to do therapy.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    They just don’t get it. My wife doesn’t either. She genuinely cannot grasp that I fear death at all

EZ-E 3y ago

I think it's the period before death that scares me more than the big empty void. The big empty of death triggers a bit of anxiety but the process of my health degrading is what I feel triggers the depressed feeling...

cambaceres 3y ago
There are really good stuff for that, like opiates and benzodiazipines.
- zikduruqe 3y ago
  And psychedelics. https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/features/facing-death-without-fear-psychedelics--end-life-care https://www.webmd.com/palliative-care/features/facing-death-...

sph 3y ago

> Fear of death is not rational. I vehemently disagree. From the human to the amoeba, avoiding death is our primary instinct. It might not make philosophical sense to fear death, but on a biological sense, it is the utmost priority, and any organism would benefit from having an innate, irrational, all-consuming fear of its life ceasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation Accepting your death is a learned behaviour, not innate. Either because you know that it will happen shortly, or because of high-order rationalisation such as meditation, reading a lot of philosophy books or believing in abstract concepts such as afterlife. It all depends on your definition of rationality: if you "think" about it, there's no reason to fear death. But if your entire physical being had a say, as it should, as we are more than just pure thought, death is the antithesis of life itself, and must be avoided at all cost.

bowsamic 3y ago
Instincts are not rational

circlefavshape 3y ago

Aubade By Philip Larkin I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what’s really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible but how And where and when I shall myself die. Arid interrogation: yet the dread Of dying, and being dead, Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse — The good not done, the love not given, time Torn off unused — nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says _No rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel_, not seeing That this is what we fear — no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anaesthetic from which none come round. And so it stays just on the edge of vision, A small unfocused blur, a standing chill That slows each impulse down to indecision. Most things may never happen: this one will, And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know, Have always known, know that we can’t escape, Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go. Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring Intricate rented world begins to rouse. The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Work has to be done. Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

The_Colonel 3y ago

> Fear of death is not rational. I don't fear the "being death" part, but there are some other aspects which are more rational: * I fear the process of dying which is usually far from pleasant (in various ways) * I fear the consequences of my death. I would leave behind my wife, children, friends who will mourn. I have small children and the idea that they would miss their father gives me the biggest worries. * I fear the missed opportunities like seeing my children growing up.