8 ms·

Touching stuff... It could be middle age tainting my perspective... but sometimes I feel this sort of... not visceral, but very close and undeniable... experie

Touching stuff... It could be middle age tainting my perspective... but sometimes I feel this sort of... not visceral, but very close and undeniable... experience with death is easier for people who are young. Death isn't real for most people at 17, no matter how much they have seen, many see the death of a grandparent, or two, or perhaps even four, before reaching 17, but most still enter their late teens, feeling invincible and like death is a whole lifetime away... because on a sort of undeniable personal narrative level is is... it is a lifetime away... and things that feel a lifetime away are much easier to think about than things that feel like they get closer every year. In middle age you know your to some statistical average "about half way there"... and that's a very different place from which to begin having this kind of life experience.

JofArnold 3y ago
As someone of the same age I feel the same. Sometimes I'm enjoying myself or finding it especially easy to be stoical about mortality. But sometimes it makes me breathless with dread for a few minutes. The realisation I was probably born a bit too early for technology to give me immortality saddens me; I only have so many weekends left to do hobbies and even fewer blocks of a few thousand hours to master something new... So I have to prioritise which is annoying.
- RHSman2 3y ago
  I was afflicted with an awareness of existence from an early age and struggled with it till around 40. Having kids obviously enhanced that but also changed me so profoundly and I realized we are just human sized atoms flying through the universe. I’d simply advise to get on getting on. It is. You are you so see what you can do with it in the way you feel you can.
  - sanroot99 3y ago
    What is the point of being immortal, if lt bring eternal suffering, Life in itself current form is suffering for many, unless you solve all other problem other then just mortality, life in itself bring difference with long lifespan. Inherently I see no difference if I live 100 years or 1000 years.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  There are countless people who have died before you that were born too early for things like penicillin. You can always find a reason to be grateful (just as, I suppose, we can always find a reason to be saddened ... and probably our future counterparts will as well.)
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  I dont get this obsession with immortality, if its unleashed then it will be to enhance slavery. Dictators that dont die, potential dark ages. Enjoy rather current times, we have it easy and pretty compared to whats coming
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    FOMO, quite literally.
  - skeaker 3y ago
    Quite hard to enjoy the current times if you're dead. I would take my chances with the immortality even in spite of some vague "dark ages" hand-wave scenario, thanks.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      Well, if there is a immortality drug, it won't be cheap. So only the rich can get it, who will then live longer, and have more time to accumulate wealth, while thinking, "the earth is already overpopulated. If the drug becomes too cheap, that problem will worsen" So it will stay out of reach for the masses. So the result will likely be immortal overlords and mortal peasants. Hard to see any other outcome.
      - skeaker 3y ago
        As long as we're writing science fiction, if immortality was known to exist like that, there are swathes of ordinary people who would stop at nothing to obtain it. Perhaps the cure IS cheap (how could you know for certain it's not?) and it's not an issue in the first place. Perhaps some of the rich will not be so cynical and give immortality to the finest minds in the world, allowing scientists to build knowledge indefinitely instead of whole generations of knowledge and experience being permanently lost consistently every 80-100 years. Perhaps those scientists with massive amounts of experience thanks to the time they now have bring about a utopia.
RHSman2 3y ago
Life is unbelievable. Then we hold on. And then it’s gone. Pick how you wanna live it.
escapedmoose 3y ago
Oh absolutely. I personally had legitimately 0 fear of death until 30. Then it began to creep up.
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
I was thinking about death occasionally until I got my first anesthesia (around 45). I then realized what death is: a switch is flipped off and you are done. No memories, nothing. You just stop to exist. From then on I do not worry anymore and stopped wondering about death altogether.
- ericmay 3y ago
  I think for many people, myself included, the worry isn’t “the switch flipped” it’s losing everything and everyone you’ve ever cared about. Life is pretty awesome. Don’t want to give that up for any reason.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - plasticchris 3y ago
    What has been lost? You no longer know loss then.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      Right, and we won’t be anxious about it then. But now is not then.
      - digging 3y ago
        That's what they're saying, though. The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. You'll never be aware of having died or lost anything through your own death. It's just insanely difficult for us to internalize that idea because we're animals, we avoid death instinctively and fear loss instinctively.
        hotnfresh 3y ago
        Yeah, I get it. None of that does anything to mitigate the feeling when the yawning expanse of inevitable non-existence comes into one's mind. [EDIT] Oh, also: > The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. Ceasing to exist will happen. It's guaranteed to happen. The fact of anxiety being useless doesn't do much to get rid of it. If it did, there wouldn't be much of it at all.
MichaelRo 3y ago
I don't fear death, I fear pain and torment. Which is pretty common in the old age and can hit you at any time, even in the young age. That's why my mental bandage for the very likely torture at the end of the line is medically assisted suicide. I don't delude myself that I will never need that, in fact I'm almost certain I'll get to a point where it will be the humane option. Everyone I got to know in my family died agonizing deaths after oftentimes long period of illnesses. Of course in my country, Retardia, this medical euthanasia isn't an option but as an EU citizen with enough money I will get it in Netherlands or Switzerland if and when I'll need it.
- frontman1988 3y ago
  >medical euthanasia isn't an option Aren't there plenty good open source alternatives to achieve this without aid from the government? Like something as simple as CO poisoning would do the job convincingly and cheaply.
cfyvguihjouhy 3y ago
I've heard of meditation as a form of preparation for death. As a way to approach and contemplate it, and as a way to maintain equanimity while facing it. I'm still in my 20s, so maybe I still have some youthful arrogance and distance rattling about up in my noggin that makes this an easy and useless thing to say. I have witnessed the death of my father, and a couple of my friends from childhood are already dead. But I come from suicidal stock, so maybe that's part of it too. I think at this point I fear more the nature of getting older, having seen some of the early, innocuous signs of it in myself. Still at the age where in another life I could die in some glorious way, valorizing youth. But I'm set up for the long haul in this life, even as I want to do something reckless.

JofArnold 3y ago

As someone of the same age I feel the same. Sometimes I'm enjoying myself or finding it especially easy to be stoical about mortality. But sometimes it makes me breathless with dread for a few minutes. The realisation I was probably born a bit too early for technology to give me immortality saddens me; I only have so many weekends left to do hobbies and even fewer blocks of a few thousand hours to master something new... So I have to prioritise which is annoying.

RHSman2 3y ago
I was afflicted with an awareness of existence from an early age and struggled with it till around 40. Having kids obviously enhanced that but also changed me so profoundly and I realized we are just human sized atoms flying through the universe. I’d simply advise to get on getting on. It is. You are you so see what you can do with it in the way you feel you can.
- sanroot99 3y ago
  What is the point of being immortal, if lt bring eternal suffering, Life in itself current form is suffering for many, unless you solve all other problem other then just mortality, life in itself bring difference with long lifespan. Inherently I see no difference if I live 100 years or 1000 years.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
There are countless people who have died before you that were born too early for things like penicillin. You can always find a reason to be grateful (just as, I suppose, we can always find a reason to be saddened ... and probably our future counterparts will as well.)
saiya-jin 3y ago
I dont get this obsession with immortality, if its unleashed then it will be to enhance slavery. Dictators that dont die, potential dark ages. Enjoy rather current times, we have it easy and pretty compared to whats coming
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  FOMO, quite literally.
- skeaker 3y ago
  Quite hard to enjoy the current times if you're dead. I would take my chances with the immortality even in spite of some vague "dark ages" hand-wave scenario, thanks.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    Well, if there is a immortality drug, it won't be cheap. So only the rich can get it, who will then live longer, and have more time to accumulate wealth, while thinking, "the earth is already overpopulated. If the drug becomes too cheap, that problem will worsen" So it will stay out of reach for the masses. So the result will likely be immortal overlords and mortal peasants. Hard to see any other outcome.
    - skeaker 3y ago
      As long as we're writing science fiction, if immortality was known to exist like that, there are swathes of ordinary people who would stop at nothing to obtain it. Perhaps the cure IS cheap (how could you know for certain it's not?) and it's not an issue in the first place. Perhaps some of the rich will not be so cynical and give immortality to the finest minds in the world, allowing scientists to build knowledge indefinitely instead of whole generations of knowledge and experience being permanently lost consistently every 80-100 years. Perhaps those scientists with massive amounts of experience thanks to the time they now have bring about a utopia.

RHSman2 3y ago

Life is unbelievable. Then we hold on. And then it’s gone. Pick how you wanna live it.

escapedmoose 3y ago

Oh absolutely. I personally had legitimately 0 fear of death until 30. Then it began to creep up.

BrandoElFollito 3y ago

I was thinking about death occasionally until I got my first anesthesia (around 45). I then realized what death is: a switch is flipped off and you are done. No memories, nothing. You just stop to exist. From then on I do not worry anymore and stopped wondering about death altogether.

ericmay 3y ago
I think for many people, myself included, the worry isn’t “the switch flipped” it’s losing everything and everyone you’ve ever cared about. Life is pretty awesome. Don’t want to give that up for any reason.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- plasticchris 3y ago
  What has been lost? You no longer know loss then.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Right, and we won’t be anxious about it then. But now is not then.
    - digging 3y ago
      That's what they're saying, though. The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. You'll never be aware of having died or lost anything through your own death. It's just insanely difficult for us to internalize that idea because we're animals, we avoid death instinctively and fear loss instinctively.
      - hotnfresh 3y ago
        Yeah, I get it. None of that does anything to mitigate the feeling when the yawning expanse of inevitable non-existence comes into one's mind. [EDIT] Oh, also: > The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. Ceasing to exist will happen. It's guaranteed to happen. The fact of anxiety being useless doesn't do much to get rid of it. If it did, there wouldn't be much of it at all.

MichaelRo 3y ago

I don't fear death, I fear pain and torment. Which is pretty common in the old age and can hit you at any time, even in the young age. That's why my mental bandage for the very likely torture at the end of the line is medically assisted suicide. I don't delude myself that I will never need that, in fact I'm almost certain I'll get to a point where it will be the humane option. Everyone I got to know in my family died agonizing deaths after oftentimes long period of illnesses. Of course in my country, Retardia, this medical euthanasia isn't an option but as an EU citizen with enough money I will get it in Netherlands or Switzerland if and when I'll need it.

frontman1988 3y ago
>medical euthanasia isn't an option Aren't there plenty good open source alternatives to achieve this without aid from the government? Like something as simple as CO poisoning would do the job convincingly and cheaply.

cfyvguihjouhy 3y ago

I've heard of meditation as a form of preparation for death. As a way to approach and contemplate it, and as a way to maintain equanimity while facing it. I'm still in my 20s, so maybe I still have some youthful arrogance and distance rattling about up in my noggin that makes this an easy and useless thing to say. I have witnessed the death of my father, and a couple of my friends from childhood are already dead. But I come from suicidal stock, so maybe that's part of it too. I think at this point I fear more the nature of getting older, having seen some of the early, innocuous signs of it in myself. Still at the age where in another life I could die in some glorious way, valorizing youth. But I'm set up for the long haul in this life, even as I want to do something reckless.