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I hate this reasoning. Why is this a fitting way to die? What would be a fitting way to go for a cook or an athlete then?
by tzfld 2y ago
I hate this reasoning. Why is this a fitting way to die? What would be a fitting way to go for a cook or an athlete then?
- nurettin 2y agoMaybe doing what they like the most, and taking all the risk/responsibility that comes with it.
- larodi 2y agoBecause an unfitting way to die is to be stuffed with tubes, half conscious in a bed, shitting your pants uncontrollably. The perspective of dying lying helpless in a hospital or care house is not very appealing to people who had an active life.
- ojosilva 2y agoDying in a last scream of fear, angst and struggle regretting a thousand things that may have gone wrong or maybe were just your fault, without having the chance to tell your loved ones how much you love them, and being remembered not only by the incredible flights where no one had gone before, but finally and uttermost by the one that ended your life which will be replayed endlessly in the internets. Not sure what would be fitting to be honest.
- lordnacho 2y agoI'm going to visit someone who is having it worse, in my opinion. He's slowly deteriorating from Alzheimers. He won't acknowledge it and has become seriously grumpy. He used to know everyone in his town. He was a good guy. Now, everyone thinks he's an asshole. Everyone who didn't meet him before he started this decline has had a terrible time with him. He curses all the time. Last week, he forgot to shut off the gas and was found unconscious by the fire department. Now, he will be in a care home against his wishes until the inevitable. This is not the first incident where police had to be phoned, either. So he's gone from a week liked, active member of the community to being the grumpy old guy that the authorities have to be phoned about in just a couple of years. I'm going to go see him for a final farewell later this month, I hope he recognises me.
- sva_ 2y agoDying from Alzheimer's is truly terrible. From what I understand, in your final moments the neurons that move your lungs and beat your heart will give up, which is usually the end. And it's not the kind of opioidic kind of forgetting that you have to breathe either. It's pure struggle 'til the final moment. Back in school I had an art teacher whose father went that way, and it was clear that he was extremely traumatized by witnessing that. My condolences.
- gradascent 2y agoOr maybe the final moment was a sigh of acceptance and gratitude for the live he lived. Nobody knows but him.
- simonh 2y ago> Dying in a last scream of fear, angst and struggle regretting a thousand things that may have gone wrong or maybe were just your fault… I think you’re projecting. I didn’t know him obviously, but from what people who did have said about him, that doesn’t seem like the way he’d go out.
- ojosilva 2y agoYou're right. Parent was projecting as well. Both are hypotheticals of ways to die, not an account of what happened or would happen were he not to die from a plane crash.
- closewith 2y agoWe might be different types of people (your comment about regret strongly suggests we are), but I've been in some very hairy situations where I was fairly sure I was about to die traumatically and I didn't experience any of what you're suggesting. Instead it was a calm resignation or acceptance that was oddly peaceful. Not that I don't want to live, but I don't fear death and would take the plane crash over wasting in a hospital any day. I have a DNR registered with the health service in my country to make sure that never happens.
- sokoloff 2y agoThere is zero risk of this astronaut being primarily remembered for how he died.
- larodi 2y agowe cannot be 100% sure this final loop in the air was completely unintended, also that he didn't have a stroke or something during this flight. also wonder whether a seasoned pilot with lifetime experience, and a space time... screams at challenging times in the air.
- overstay8930 2y agoMost people die painful and slow deaths in a bed surrounded by people they don’t know, or most likely entirely alone. Almost nobody dies peacefully in their sleep, it’s usually some horrible disease or failing bodily function. If you’re going to die a “fitting” way, it’s going to be because you took your life passion to the extreme.
- closewith 2y agoMost people die at home with family. Only certain over-medicalised countries have a preponderance of the elderly dying in hospital.
- jandrewrogers 2y agoHe went out on his own terms subject to the rules of the way he lived. No excuses. It may not have been his intent to die but he was willing to take the risk. That is the price of true agency.
- patrec 2y agoWhen you are prepared to die in a plane crash because of your decrepitude, how much risk to others is entailed in a case like this? If the plausible answer is “not that much” I am with you. But nonagenarian self-actualization at the cost of other people’s lives and limbs is a different story.
- closewith 2y agoThe medicals for pilots are exhaustive and frequent, so you can be assured he was probably in better health than the majority of the population.
- rgmerk 2y agoThe risk of dying while flying in a light plane is reasonably high. The risk of dying from a light plane crashing into you while you are on the ground is negligible.
- accrual 2y agoMy take is that he passed doing what he clearly loved: flying. He made some of his greatest achievements in life while in flight and was still flying during his final moments.
- cjk2 2y agoAs a mathematician I'm going to fall on a slide rule and poke my brain through an eye socket. Yeah doesn't work does it.
- szvsw 2y agoChoke on chalk, nerd! Or maybe have an aneurysm trying to remember some latex command.
- krisoft 2y ago> What would be a fitting way to go for a cook or an athlete then? Whatever they liked doing? Being an astronaut at that time implied that he was an aviator. Keeping his licence to fly into the old age of 90 means he most likely loved flying. That is why it is a “fitting way to die”. I don’t know the cook you mention. Maybe they loved cooking for loved ones. In that case a fitting way to die would be while they are doing that. But maybe it was just their profession, but what made them enjoy their life was watching musicals in the theatre. In that case a fitting way to die would be them dying after watching a great performance on their way out of the theatre. Maybe it would help if we would contrast this with an “unfitting” way to die? Let’s take the same cook who loves musicals. If she were to try to climb her roof to fix a leak (something she never before professed to care much about) and they slip and fall off the roof. That would be an unfitting way to die. Dying is probably painfull, scary and confusing in many cases. But the circumstances surrounding it can make it worse or better. Dying in an accident doing something you always hated is worse than dying in an accident doing something you loved.
- lukan 2y ago"Dying in an accident doing something you always hated is worse than dying in an accident doing something you loved." Dead is dead, though. I do not think the final moments matter as much as all the years before them. So even if I will one day die on the toilet being old, that would be way better, than me dying soon in an climbing accident, even though that sounds more dramatic and I am way more into climbing than toilets.
- lannisterstark 2y agoHe was 90. You're reading too much into it. It's like when people get angry about a "Bless you."
- lukan 2y agoDid I sound angry? I was just adressing the point that some people seem to value the circumstances of their death more, then the years before that. Wiliam Anders did what he wanted, fine by me, unless he actually was not fit to fly anymore (as this endangers other people), but no one had the guts to tell him that, being a national hero.
- sva_ 2y ago> athlete Something like cycling down a mountain and dying from a lack of decreasing elevation.
- bradleykingz 2y ago[dead]
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoProbably falling into an industrial sized fryer or getting a tennis racket wrapped around their neck, respectively.
- PKop 2y agoDifferent lifestyles, and different deaths, have different glory and honor attached to them, whether you like it or not. Being an astronaut that went to the moon and a pilot that dies flying at 90 will always and forever be cooler and more impressive than a cook, and most athletes too. I love this reasoning.