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I never said it was a rational feeling :) I don't know the right way to explain the feeling. I think it's mostly the same sadness that one experiences when any

I never said it was a rational feeling :) I don't know the right way to explain the feeling. I think it's mostly the same sadness that one experiences when anything particularly wonderful comes to an end. I have known loss in a variety of ways, and I imagine dying taps in to that same idea of mourning. Something that I enjoy terribly must end, I have to say goodbye to not only a terrific experience - but to experience itself. It's mostly the anticipation of the thing, not so much the thing. I'm sure once I'm dead I won't care so much that I'm dead. I just care now that one day I will be. And thus concludes my inability to lend written word to irrational emotion. Edit: as I sit here reflecting now, I wonder if part of it isn't the fear of regret - of not having taken full advantage, of not having loved enough or having wasted time on things actually inconsequential. It's also making me wonder if I already know that I'll have those regrets and maybe should make a few changes. Tonight got deeper that I expected it to...

dhimes 12y ago
"You" die every moment, and in the next moment a new "you" arises. The "you" now is different than the "you" five minutes ago- cells have been born and died, you've exchanged particles with your surroundings, your thoughts have changed, and so on. There is no "you" in the sense of an unchanging "being." It's impossible for "you" to exist for more than a moment. On the other hand the "you"s that have arisen have left an indelible footprint of their existence on the universe. It's impossible for those footprints to go away. They are immortal. That is not to say it is irrational to grieve your (our) unavoidable lack of being "alive," but it helps to understand clearly what we are grieving. It's not the ceasing of the existence of "you"- that happens every moment. It is the lack of the next arising. These are largely Buddhist thoughts FWIW.

dhimes 12y ago

"You" die every moment, and in the next moment a new "you" arises. The "you" now is different than the "you" five minutes ago- cells have been born and died, you've exchanged particles with your surroundings, your thoughts have changed, and so on. There is no "you" in the sense of an unchanging "being." It's impossible for "you" to exist for more than a moment. On the other hand the "you"s that have arisen have left an indelible footprint of their existence on the universe. It's impossible for those footprints to go away. They are immortal. That is not to say it is irrational to grieve your (our) unavoidable lack of being "alive," but it helps to understand clearly what we are grieving. It's not the ceasing of the existence of "you"- that happens every moment. It is the lack of the next arising. These are largely Buddhist thoughts FWIW.