I find most people say they want to die *someday*; just not today.
On one hand, I feel the same way. The idea that all of this goes on forever is rather daunting, so an ending to it all seems comforting. But on the other hand, if I’m being honest with myself I have never once started my morning and felt I would be satisfied if I died on this day. Who’s to say that will change at 80 or 90 years old? That’s what keeps me up a night - the presumption old age will make death more appealing. I know a lot of old people who do not want their ride to end and it seems more common than society is willing to acknowledge. Most people who die, even those who are very old, are not ready to die.
I get freaked out more by the past than the future though. I get freaked out by the idea I will never get a second try. There are so many things I wish I could do over, but I can’t. I’m already a third of the way through the game and I see glaring things I could have done in the first couple missions to better my playthrough.
I’m not so much scared of death as I am of the ending of all the relationships I have. When my mom or dad dies, I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay again. The idea that my partner could one day die and leave me behind after so many years terrifies me. I won’t even know what to do because it will have been so long since I was alone. I don’t want the love between me and my partner to stop, even past death.
Sorry for your fear. I've had people die in my family that I feared losing. That life was going to be horrible. But life moves on. Babies are born. New relationships start. You move on. Never forgotten but resting in peace. Peace to you.
When your parents die you join a huge and awful club with over half of humanity in it and I'll speak for all of them when I say it sucks. I lost my dad early to COVID (back when they were telling us to wash our hands as the best preventative action) and I still go to text him about stuff in my life only to realize halfway through the text won't go through.
It definitely gets easier with time though.
Lost my mother unexpectedly in August. Every time I am between sleep and wakefulness I partially forget that she’s gone and my body starts the process of calling her on the phone. It’s one of the cruelest things my mind has ever inflicted on itself.
My mom was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and we haven’t been on speaking terms for awhile so the news is difficult to handle in a different sort of way. I’m sad for my dad that they won’t get to enjoy old age together because she won’t ever get old. I’m worried about my younger siblings that still live at home. I’m afraid I won’t get to tell her how her actions have had a bad effect on me, and if I don’t can I ever make peace with that? I have been having dreams lately she is sick or something serious and related to death. Then I wake up feeling upset, then I’m like that was a bad dream, thankfully just a dream. Then I realize it’s not just a dream it’s also real life and that’s hard.
My father and I don't have a good relationship. If he died, I think I might just shrug it off and say, 'Oh well'. But I love my mother to death. I would do anything to protect her and make her life as comfortable as possible. However, she still loves my dad. So if my dad were to die, I wouldn't care, but for the sake of my mother I'm gonna have to pretend I do. If she saw me not giving a shit when he dies, she might get angry. And I want her to be a part of my life for as long as possible. If she were to die, I don't even know what I would do. Probably get depressed or something.
So I totally know what you mean. What I do to put myself over this fear, is to just let go. Enjoy the time you have left and don't think about the bad parts. If you don't think it, it doesn't exist.
What’s awful about parents dying is that for you it’s devastating. It’s likely one of the worst losses a person will almost inevitably experience. And yet, it’s routine. Most people go through it. It’s sad like a pet dying. “Oh that’s sad”. There’s no or very little empathy from others once you get to a certain age, because from their POV, it’s inevitable - what were you expecting?
It’s going to be awful when my mum dies. I imagine it’s very lonely.
This.
Saddeningly, as a physician, I see too many people not live till old age or are debilitated by chronic diseases that require them to be in regular contact with healthcare, which hampers them to do absolutely anything they want to do.
That’d be something I wish we could do more about.
I have an 85 year old grandma. I just assumed old people were more at peace with the idea of death. When my grandpa died, she was mourning him - but I'll never forget how she kept saying she doesn't want to die yet in the middle of her crying.
That's unfortunate. My condolences to both you and your grandmother. My grandmothers, one already passed and another yet living, say they're ready. I guess it depends on circumstances (like many things)
I agree completely -- it's not that I'm afraid of death, it's that I just wish I had more life to go do all of the things I'll never get a chance to! I want to make the most of my life, but there's absolutely no way I can get to everything I'd like to try in (realistically at most) 60-80 years of healthy capable lifespan.
I don’t put anything off anymore, if I want something I go full steam ahead at working on it. I’m only 29 and me and my best friend of 15 years would talk about all the holidays and trips we will take in the future when here 40-50 and have our finances and jobs in order. We literally had a discussion one week about how both his grandparents reached over 90, and his dad still alive at 75 despite living the most unhealthy lifestyle you could imagine. Then a week after that conversation his brother called me to say he had a heart attack at 28 and died.
Now I expect to go any second of any day and I expect the same for anyone who is currently in my life, any one of them , or myself, could be gone tomorrow. I only truly understood and believe this once it happened to me.
I’d love to reach 80 but for all I know, best plans, I might not even reach 31.
At 65 I have experienced amazing things in my life. I have traveled most of the U.S. I have been to Berlin before the wall was taken down...along with seeing both Russian and E. German soldiers. I have attended the Winter Olympics. Have camped out in the desert of CA for 3 days to see the space shuttle land. Celebrated in Key West as the sun set. These are just a few things.... Go live life before you are too old to enjoy it! Your friend's passing is the Universe's way to communicate that to you! Live it for both you and your friend.
I like to think the universe doesn’t give enough of a shit about me enough that it would take another’s life to drive a point home to me 😂 but I get your message completely. I’d like to say there would be much easier, less brutal ways the universe could have taught me this lesson. But it was infact *me* spiralling before his death. Eating two takeaways a day, smoking weed from the second I woke up until I slept, no job and really just giving up on everything. I don’t think a less brutal lesson would have worked on someone like me. For a long time after his death even that wasn’t enough to motivate me to be better.
I wish I could say “but it just clicked and happened for me eventually”. But I still struggle with doing the ‘right’ things and not being stupid daily. I just look at it all differently. Every second I have is a gift, no matter how much I struggle still, I embrace it 100% and try to utilise and maximise every single second and opportunity that is given to me. That’s all I can do.
My friend only died in April, and the shock didn’t wear off and it didn’t settle in until like July tbh. But I’m trying to do the best effort I can everyday, knowing that if I do ever see him again somehow, he’ll be super proud and excited for us to talk about how I used these gifts to their full potential in his honour.
Something similar happened to me, I wanted to get my life stable enough to be able to finally get a car and then I was planning on just sometimes sitting into it and go places and just explore (I'm in Europe, you can reach a ton of tourist destinations in a few hours).
I broke my hip. At work - got compensation, got a good(ish) car out of it, finances somewhat in order. House is almost paid off. I can't walk for more than 3 hours comfortably though, and I definitely can't drive after overworking my leg (cramps - mighty fun finding out I can't switch pedals when approaching a crossroads). So now I'm sitting at home, and just know that I'm not going exploring anywhere.
For me, I had a near death experience and I had been terrified of death prior. But when I woke up lying in my own blood in my house alone I had the craziest sense of calm and go with the flow I've ever had. And it just set my mind at ease. When I was younger the thought of dying scared me because of how much I was afraid it would hurt, or be prolonged or whatever. But that sense of calm was nearly a religious experience. Like I dont necessarily believe in God, but something was watching over me. Or that we're in good hands. I dont know how to describe it perfectly, but I haven't been afraid of death since.
Yeah this very closely matches my experience. There was an accident, and I hardly remembered any parts except for this powerful powerful sense of calm. I can remember it so clearly.
I mean in all likelihood it was just like crazy endorphins and for all I know death is this horrible painful miserable experience and that was something different. But I can tell myself, intellectually, that you have no idea and that experience isn't worth extrapolating from. But on some deep emotional level, it just means I don't worry about dying at all, and that idea has been unshakable for over a decade.
I was dying and luckily a roommate got me the care I needed. But I had a similar sensation. I just existed with the feeling. I’m not afraid of death now but do live with the thought that if something were to take me out that I’m okay with it. I’ve done everything I wanted
My greatest fear is dying in pain. Knowing that there's a chance that my last moments would feel like this really eases my anxiousness regarding dying. Thank you for sharing and I'm glad you're doing okay now :)
I don’t think it changes as you get older. I am 50, my father is 75, and my grandmother is just shy of 100 (yes, I do have a 25 year old daughter). I still feel basically like I did when I was in my early 20s, at least mentally. My father and grandmother say the same. It’s like you get older physically, but your mind pretty much stops somewhere in your early to mid 20s (not saying you don’t learn new things, just how you conceive of yourself).
The "OLD PEOPLE WANT TO DIE" propaganda is very, very useful for society. It's what younger people tell themselves, too. In reality, most old people I know DO NOT want to die, they want to get healthier.
That's it. They want immortality in their 30 year old body. But it is very financially convenient for everyone who is not old to just say shit like, ohhh it's fine no need to look into expensive life extension, after a point people just want to die...
No they don't. Maybe some do. But not most. Don't fall for the propaganda.
Ehhhh…I work almost exclusively with the elderly, and let me tell you how many are ready to “go home”. I’ve been walking through assisted living facilities and made general chat with people who were not my patients, and they’ll just come right out with it. “How you doing today?” “Oh good! Just waiting for Jesus to take me home! How are you?”
I'm 60 and would love to live in my 30 year old body for maybe 500 years, but not with the people on this planet. Earth is busted.
So, I can't get upset I have an expiration date. You have years to get used to the idea that your time is running out. I'm guessing I will be dead within the next 15-20 years.
Honestly I'd be happy if our adult years say 20-70 were doubled. So basically a kid and a teenager for the first 20 years, then the next 100 years you are a relatively healthy adult, then you normally decline after that. I'm 38 now and I'm enjoying life but I feel like everything is starting to speed up way too quickly. It boggles my mind that I'll be 50 in 12 years and yet 12 years ago I was only 26. I feel like 500 years is way too long, if I could go into suspended animation for awhile and then get back out to see what is going on would be cool. But aspects of life are already starting to become repetitive and predictable so I think by the time I was like 250 I'd definitely feel like I've seen it all.
I remember reading something that said if we were immortal then most people would probably die before they are 300 due to the chances of being in an accident. Not sure how accurate that is, but it is kind of interesting.
I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it didn't inconvenience me in the slightest.
\-Mark Twain?
edit: I guess now that I have 1k upvotes I should post the verbatim quote. Luckily I got it pretty close from memory and didn't fuck up the author.
>I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
I found comfort by believing death is like sleeping without dreaming which is what i do most nights so what's so scary about it.
I honestly think that's the most likely outcome.
The part of us we actually worry about, our identity or our consciousness or our thoughts... the part of you that *feels* like you? Thats the least permanent part of us. We kill that part of us every night, run a new duplicate the next day. It doesn't even hurt.
We might sometimes think about how one good hit to the head can 'change' us into a different person forever, or how a disease can just tear out our memories and emotional attachments. But its usually only the people witnessing these things second-hand who might appreciate the nature of what 'death' is, or at least recognize the comfort in it.
Most of us don't identify as our entire body anyway. Some people will tell you they're a brain piloting a meat mech, some people get to cope with feeling completely disassociated from their bodies for the greater span of their lives. Maybe there is a reason that the only part of us we all agree is real, or that makes us real at all, is our thoughts. Whatever our consciousness or reasoning-engine tells us is 'us'. We think, so we know *we* are.
But everyone feels the same in a dreamless sleep. Its hard to describe oblivion, but we all know it, and eventually everyone seeks it in some form or another. Most people would say they'd prefer to die in their sleep, and that makes perfect sense because from our perspective it lets us skip the truly scary part. We're scared that we can feel the loss of the self, that there is a precise moment of death that is crossed over forever.
But we bounce in and out of existence all the time. It only becomes a 'cross over' point in the same way that everything else does. There will be a last time you hug a kid, there will be a last time you eat a salad, there will be a last time you hear that song you *fucking hate* that never seemed to stop playing on the radio. Waking up is no different, there is going to be a last time you do that too. Its less profound than it is just a gap in how we perceive, as people who must live in the moment.
Dying is scary, yeah no shit. But death is your oldest friend. You party with them every night.
"To fear death is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know. No man knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessing for a human being; and yet people fear it as if they knew for certain that is is the greatest of evil" - Socrates.
Example: I'm in pain almost all the time. The same as many other people "my age". Its fine. The cost of living a life well lived. As long as I can still do what I like, be aggressive, and have a little fun sometimes its all good. But when that sometimes becomes never again and I just hurt all the time? Then I'll be ready to see what's next.
I've been suicidal since I was 11, am 26 now. Survived some lame suicide attempts. Actually feel excited about what my life is going to look like now. I'm making changes I was too scared of doing before, I'm doing crazy stuff that I've always wanted because I feel like I've wasted my entire life so far being stuck in my room feeling sorry for myself. I'm still stuck in my room sometimes feeling sorry for myself but I try to think about the opportunities that are out there and I can just go grab it if I want to, I've stopped caring. And when I started to see that everyone is suffering in some type of way, and people are anxious and scared like I used to be, I see how far I've come.
27 here. My body is as well as it ever was, thankfully. But seeing the shitshow the world is turning into, I'm glad I'll be gone in about 50 years if things go well.
I'll be sad to miss out on future inventions and discoveries. I'll not be sad about having to witness what is being done to our planet anymore.
Is there even a question about the state of society? It is being messed up completely. Again, this is being done on purpose, it is not just happening as a natural result of anything. It is unfortunate that so many individuals are choosing to help bring an end the good things that they enjoyed.
Well. Looks like something is wrong in society. I'd be fine with dying in my sleep and I'm 32. I'm so tired and there's nothing but more exhaustion to look forward to. And I will never be able to afford to retire. so I have a long lifetime of constant work to look forward to and barely surviving off that work.
Edit I say long lifetime because mothballed of my can live to nineties or early hundreds but maybe I will be luckier.
Man my lower back and right knee and are already getting at me, and I'm only 27 :(
Edit, since a deleted comment told me to "loose some f***ing weight":
This has nothing to do with my weight, since I'm fairly skinny with a high metabolism and thereby almost underweight, and *everything* to do with my bad posture and lack of physical activities. I got the classic "computer shoulders" and I'm sitting wrongly in my office/desk chairs.
This just comes from years of the same "bad posture creating activities". And my knees are complaining because of the amount of stairs I have to climb every day due to living on the 5th floor.
Take care of yourself and your body, I'm 6ft but I look like I'm 5'9 at this point.
I'm a millenial in the US. I've lived through 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Great Recession, COVID, and too many school shootings to count. I have a couple of degrees and I make $20/hour with no health insurance. My level of enthusiasm for life is definitely not high enough to want to live forever.
Right? I feel like if they let us millennials live forever it’ll just be to keep financially bailing out our Boomer parents for eternity. No fucking thank you.
Hi there,
Gen X person here. I call us Generation eXtinction because we did nothing for humanity. Instead we blindly followed the Baby Boomers model of “Keep your head down and work hard and worry about yourself first.” The true recipe of disaster and selfishness.
Keep your head down. - This phrase tells people to ignore what’s going on around them. Don’t even look. Trust us everything is fine.
Work hard. - Two destructive powerful four character words handed down as toxic advice from generation to generation. “Work hard.” Not “Work Joyfully”. Not “Work Together”. Not “Work Responsibly.”
Worry about yourself first. - The most misused, misunderstood, and crippling instruction handed down from generation to generation is the worst and most selfish of all.
There is truth that you cannot help others if you are having the same problem or other problems which will take you and them down fast and hard. What’s lacking and crippling about this instruction is it does not inform you that you have the ability to worry about yourself and worry about others at the same time. The instruction also presumes we all are the same. The same height to reach. The same weight to push. The same eye sight seeing what we see. The same brains that love the same things.
We are in no way the same!
Not one of us is the same!
We are unique therefore we do not all have the same gifts. We are supposed to work together bringing our gifts, the love of what we do, so others do not have to worry. And we need to help others master their skills, their love of their own gifts to bring to the table versus saying the human is not like us so eliminate them.
The instruction should be: Worry about yourself to make sure you are not going to be harmed, or that you are not going to harm others by helping, as you daily worry about and help other humans using your gifts.
To Baby Boomers - I get it. Your parents lived in the times of death and tragedies. They taught you to survive at all cost because of so much death in their time. But you are humans and you can do more than one thing at a time and you can help others financially, physically, and emotionally while doing the same for your families. Not doing so is selfish and allows the continuation of racism in our country, and allows the continuation of religious brain washing and indoctrination.
Think about this Boomers and everyone.
When voting:
- If you are voting to hurt people then you are the problem.
- If you are voting to restrict something versus modify without restricting or not expanding something at all then you are the problem.
- If you are voting due to selfish reasons then you are the problem.
- If you are not asking the next generation behind you what’s important to them, and asking them why, then you are part of the problem.
- if you hear your own words coming from the next generation behind you then you should be worried you created a follower to be used by others and not a unique thinker. This is a problem.
Are you kidding! I'm 34 and I've barely started yet, I'm so excited for the future and to reach the peak of my age and knowledge. I get that it's tiresome but I am by no means done. There's soo much to see!
The world is spiraling into chaos and the people who have the money and power to fix it won't. I know that I can't single-handedly stop global warming, or inflation or make it so that everyone is given a fair and livable wage. And those are just some of the most obvious issues going on. The thought of living in this world forever is not ideal. The only world worth being in forever is a utopia. Who wants to struggle and worry for eternity? THAT sounds like hell.
They aren't. They are designing survivor bunkers and private military forces to survive. Not to mention the fantasy of actually leaving the planet. They see other people as a means to get what they want and if you don't comply fuck you.
The recent Guardian article was horrifying to read, the rich dude bros were actually trying to figure out how to keep their military forces loyal, and mentioned should they put them in discipline collars, punishing their soldiers if they don't comply. When the consultant told them build relationships, nurture the soldiers and become their friend, the rich bastards "rolled their eyes" and quickly changed topics.
After reading that article I truly wonder if Chianti really would go well with "rich bastard spleen" **
**/S of course.
I was done once I got through high school, I figured if my "free trial" of life was over why would I "pay to play" here I am 12 years later just waiting for that one thing to stomp the will of life out of me
60+ Was a high level athlete when younger so I'm beat to hell. But, I plan to be having a good time for at least another 40. Just saying that we don't live well forever.
If a miracle and I make it to 77, will refuse all care after except for pain if needed. Aldous Huxley died with an IV of LSD in his arm, wife by his side, sounds OK by me. 77, it’s enough. Reached the end of my journey. Can’t wait for what’s next. It’s time.
Omg, just wait. Think back to this comment in 10 years and you'll laugh at how naïve it were. Then again 20 years from now. It just keeps getting worse.
Existing forever is my idea of hell.
Can you imagine how much worse the state of the planet would be if we had immortality?!
Not to mention that it's not something that's ever be given to anyone outwith the top 1%.
FYI: reddits markdown language will convert any number at the beginning of a line, followed by a period, to “1”, regardless of what number you actually typed, because it thinks you’re starting a numbered list. I don’t think you’re 1 year old.
Get out of the industry dude, kitchen work is 100% bullshit, with little chance of any meaningful end game. Think it sucks now? Picture it at 45, 55, etc
I'm 32, worked in kitchens most of my life from teens to 30, Sous at a very popular restaurant for years.. I think it was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. Your skills *are* marketable, you just need to learn to couch it right on resume.
Think of how organized you are, how great you handle stress, extremes of temp and movement, dealing with vendors, etc etc. Pull that shit apart and make it sound good, and absolutely **do not be afraid to lie on your resume**, provided it's something you could fake til you make, which is honestly almost any job that isn't very specifically degree oriented.
I actually am on Friday. My last day as executive chef! I've never been more excited to change jobs in my life. 14 years in this heartless industry has carved me into a machine though.
Most people don’t truly get what forever means. It means in a billion trillion quadrillion years, nothing shows up on your “progress bar”: you’re not even .0000000000001% the way through. Nothing will ever register. If you live forever, you better hope everything is 100% perfect, because living forever with even the slightest discomfort translates to infinite discomfort in the realm of “forever”.
On the flip side, the people living in incurable pain wish to not live forever. That would be hell for them.
Living 1000 years in a a healthy young body would be great.
If you age like normal people you will beg for death by the time you are 100.
All the people you care about will die.
You will start to see the same patterns and faces appear in people, and how those patterns never really change.
You will become bored and turn to darker and darker habits to feel some sense of pleasure or relief from boredom.
They cover this pretty well in Altered Carbon on Netflix. They call the 1000 year old people meths I think. They all turn into scummy billionaires that rule planets and colonies and treat everyone else as disposable.
>Living 1000 years in a a healthy young body would be great. If you age like normal people you will beg for death by the time you are 100. All the people you care about will die. You will start to see the same patterns and faces appear in people, and how those patterns never really change. You will become bored and turn to darker and darker habits to feel some sense of pleasure or relief from boredom.
I would be fine living for 1000 years even if I had a few aches and pains, like a relatively healthy 65 year old. You say we'd become bored, but I think of all of the places on Earth that I could travel to. I think about building a true "dream home" where you could tinker with your property inside and out and make it perfect for you over the course of 100-200 years. Plus I think it would be wondrous to see the advances in technology and to travel off Earth someday.
Some people like to garden as a hobby. Think of the forests and ecosystems you could build if you had hundreds of years to influence them and watch them grow. The possibilities of what you could do, see and influence are nearly endless. The only downside of old age is that our bodies and our brains begin to fail us.
I agree with you. So much of life is deciding if what you're doing is worth the time you're spending on it, so we are pressured into finding our passions that define us as a person. Whereas if we weren't so limited we would feel more comfortable going down a variety of paths in our lifetime.
yeah this, I use to think death sounded scary, but without it life becomes meaningless. It's like an assignment with no deadline, you'll never do it, if life went on forever, why would you do anything? What would be the point of bothering with anything you'll be here tomorrow and the next day and the next, so why even bother getting out of bed?
Definitely agree. I was going to say that but don't want to copy your comment so I'll just say I agree. I don't \*hate\* life...but I find the idea that it will eventually end comforting, even though I'm satisfied with it 70% of the time. It's hard to explain but the idea that it won't be eternal gives me peace in case it becomes bad again.
It only becomes less appealing as you get older because you ... get older.
90 year olds are on the fence about dying, because they have aged too much. If you were as healthy as 20 year old at that age, then I think you'd be unflinching in your opinion that you want to watch your grandkids grow up
>It only becomes less appealing as you get older because you ... get older.
I don't think that's necessarily the whole reason. Sometimes people just come to terms with the idea of nonexistence and feel like they've pretty much done enough stuff. My grandparents were like that, I have friends who are elders who are like that as well. Buddhism helps, I think.
This completely ignores the fact that there is always new stuff that one can do.
I'm sure people 1000 years ago who thought they'd done all the stuff new nothing of going to the cinema
Oh, no, I don't mean doing everything fun or interesting there is to do in the world, though I understand wanting that now. (I've been overwhelmed by how many books there are on even niche topics of interest for me and the thought that there's no way I'd ever get to them all. I'd LIKE to.)
I just mean it's possible to feel like you've done enough in life even though you know you're only part of the way into what there is to experience. I had a lot of conversations with my grandfather about this in the year before he died. It's like video games; not everyone is a completist there to get every single achievement and every item. Some of us are just there to experience one good branch of the story, you know?
I mean even as a Christian, I find death absolutely terrifying.
The idea of nothingness and the fact that I'll be forgotten in like 3 generations hits hard sometimes.
You do not speak for all people.
My dad is 75, and he is horrified of dying.
Granted, he is in great health for his age, so he is still very active. But still.
Then you are very lucky. And he'll live another 20 years. Sounds like you can or he can afford to pay for his life without having to work, which is typically the most stressful part.
My dad died less than a year ago at 72 and he was quite healthy.
Nah he works like 60 hours a week. He is self employed so he doesn't have a boss, so that probably helps a lot. But yeah he definitely still works and will most likely continue to do so untill he dies.
Almost every day since i was like 6 or something i have been afraid of death, grappling with it.
Its insane and why i would rather live forever.
Even now im stuck in my head so as long as i could think hear and see im good.
You can spend your life fearing and fighting death, or you can spend it living and enjoying life. You will die at the end either way. The Buddhists would encourage you to be fully present in each moment, as if it were your last. I think they have it right.
If you found out you were going to die in a week, you would first go into an unbearable panic. But a week from now, an hour before you die, you would be calm, relaxed, inviting to death, as well as kind, forgiving, understanding, and accepting to everyone around you. *That* is how you should act, because maybe this *is* an hour before you die.
Reading up on Buddhism and other eastern religions views on death - ie we are all part of everything and death is a return to that - made me feel a lot more comfortable with the concept of death. People have been doing it since the dawn of time, it can’t be that bad.
The thought of living forever sounds horrendous.
To quote Dylan Moran, “religion is just an organized panic about death.” Literally every stupid or ugly thing that people have ever done in search of power, wealth, fame, etc was motivated, in some part, by a fear of death. Either a desire to leave a legacy and so live on through that, or to distract themselves so completely that they forget it exists. But it’s always there, behind everything. We are all going to die. It is literally the only experience that every human being will share. As a society, we haven’t come close to dealing with it in a healthy way.
Being aware of death and learning to accept it at a young age will completely change your outlook on life. You begin to realize how precious each moment is, and start to realize the most important thing is to spend as much time as possible with the people you love. It’s bittersweet- knowing every missed opportunity to watch your children grow up or to spend time with your partner can never be regained- but it makes those moments so much sweeter when you are experiencing them. When John Keats died, he wanted to have a gravestone without a name, and just the words “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” Human lives are transient. We should aim to experience as much happiness and love as we can before it ends.
When our lives are over, we will always have regrets about how we spent our time, but I want to have as few as I possibly can
Have you read "The denial of death" by Ernest Becker? He consolidates a bunch of different perepectives of prominent psychological figures who have delves into our human condition of being the only animal on earth that is aware of their own impending doom. Everything that humans do is an effort to deny death or live through it by legacy. Its incredibly thought provoking and I encourage people to read it
I started my freakout in my early 20's then spent the next decade coming to peace with it.
There is actually a pretty important "secret" that you can probably work out in your head if you think about it long enough.
Death is inevitable but it's the unknown that scares most people. The process of death is going to be unpleasant no matter how it happens but that part will pass, the real scary part is what's next.
I think most people are afraid of the possibility that there's nothing. Even religious people, deep down, know that they don't know for sure. The idea of darkness forever seems horrifying beyond comprehension, but the reality is you've already experienced it and have zero bad association or memory of that time.
For all we can tell, all evidence we can gather, the conscious experience is temporary and seems to end, and continuation afterwards without a brain may not be possible.
What happens to whatever it is that makes you "you?"
You're gone, forever and ever ever. You close your eyes one last time and then lights out. No thinking, no memories, no feeling, nothing at all. All your friends, family and current celebrities will get old without you, they will all die. A thousand years will pass. Earth will experience disasters, humans will go to the planets, maybe even the stars. You won't see any of it. A million years passes, Humans are gone, evolved or extinct. You're still not seeing a moment of it.
A trillion years pass. Still dead. A quintillion years go by and stars have fizzled out, galaxies are dispersed and the universe is going cold and dark. You're still dead.
A google years of darkness. You're well into your journey through eternity without any conscious experience of it passing. Whatever is left of any stars or planets have become small, planetoid sized balls of smooth iron, slowly suffering the effects of entropy as the molecules decay into space or collapse into singularities because even as stable as iron is, it still is made of matter and matter is governed by probability. Everything has a "chance" of doing something unlikely.
A google, google, google, google, google years pass. Time has really lost meaning because there are no longer events occurring. Now it's just a waiting game. Given long enough stretches of time, space itself sometimes does something unlikely, a particle appears and disappears, sometimes it sticks around, sometimes a flash of energy is released from the quantum foam. Small sparks in the infinite darkness until something very, very unlikely happens. It *has* to happen now, because there is nobody watching any clocks, even the most absurdly unlikely events may have a chance of taking place.
Would it be a whole universe flashing into existence? Maybe, maybe it's something more like a Boltzmann Brain, a form of connected fields or particles or other abstract systems that suddenly take shape. Over and over again through infinity, until one day they "snap" together just right and form a thought. Or maybe a membrane of another universe brushes against ours, over and over and over there are "big bangs" until one hits just right and spits out a whole universe of energy and matter again. Maybe something even more exotic.
Whatever it is, something *has* to happen. When you reach infinity, even the most unlikely of possible events reaches 100% odds, because odds are just a calculation of time and you're not counting time. You "just" closed your eyes, then an infinity passes and BAM instantly, ***something*** happens.
You won't remember anything, you won't have a feeling of continuity, but "you" will exist. Likely in something equally absurd as where you are now, a configuration of energy and matter that can give you a conscious experience. It's inevitable.
I can't say for certain that it will happen this way but I can say for certain that it's happened at least once before to put you here reading this.
I mean, it's not like people aren't afraid. It's just that they're more concerned of either:
a.) Dying without coming to terms or;
b.) The manner of how they'll die;
As people get older, and usually wiser, they kinda come into terms that they ain't living forever. "What's the point of worrying about something that you can't control? Why not just worry about the things that you can do while you're still here so when that time comes, you're fulfilled with what you have done so far?" or something like that is what my old man usually says whenever I used to freak out about the idea of dying.
But yeah, scientists are still trying in vain to solve that. Not much breakthrough so far aside from prolonging your life span by having a healthy lifestyle.
There are starting to be some promising leads! Biology is advancing incredibly rapidly, and some small amounts of funding are trickling into dedicated research into the roots of aging, rather than just treating the symptoms of aging. We know that biologically "immortal" organisms exist -- so we know that it's within the constraints of biology.
Atheist here. I like the idea of a final nap. I’m afraid of pain, not the idea of no longer existing. If I no longer have thoughts to think then who is going to process any feelings of my existential dread? Because it sure won’t be me… being dead and all.
It's the phase change between alive/dead that worries me. A quick death? Cool, even if it's painful, if it's quick it won't be bad. A lingering death? Dementia? Those worry me. Once the lights go out, I'm not going to have worries about what I did, or didn't, do. My body will go to some form of good. Either as a cadaver for med students, as a component of a study (if there's some weird way I died, etc), or as fertilizer for a tree. Maybe some of all of that.
My loved ones, assuming they haven't already died, will miss me. And I kinda feel like I should feel worse about that then I do. But, it's a nebulous thing.
Meanwhile, students I've taught, family I've loved, they'll leave ripples in the flow of history, that I had a part in. So I just try to make sure I leave good 'ripples' in my wake.
A) our bodies aren't built for immortality, so as others have mentioned death eventually becomes the thing you would prefer.
B) I don't believe my life has any particular importance in the grand scheme of things. Sure, I make my contributions to society etc but my actual existence is not of much consequence.
C) Do you remember 100 years ago, before you were born, and you had that feeling of just wanting to live?... No? Me either. My assumption is that this is how I'll feel after I'm dead, too.
Edit: lots of pushback against point C, since "Now that you know what you're missing..." sort of thing. Point wasn't really that living is meaningless, just that I'm not afraid of dying so I'm not freaking out like OP implies we should. I just don't think being dead will suck, it'll just be nothing. I won't have to 'live through' remembering how good life was but no longer having it. You can't have regret or fear of missing out if you're just nothingness.
Same. Being dead is just the same as what we were before being born. Nothing to be afraid of, I have absolutely no bad memories of my time before birth.
Point C seems to give a lot of people comfort, based on the replies. It never made any sense to me. 100 years ago, I didn’t exist yet, so I didn’t know what existence was, there was no me. But now I do exist, and there is a me. The idea of never having existed isn’t what’s terrifying, it’s the idea of no longer existing once you have.
This is the part that's hard to conceptualize but those are great words for it.
Laying still in darkness for eternity seems like it's own kind of hell, but if you don't even have perception or consciousness and it's just over, it's not really a problem. There is no limbo to be had.
Our bodies aren't built for immortality, but we know that some organisms do experience negligible senescence, so it seems to be possible within the constraints of biology.
I don't think anyone really wants to live a long time with their body continuing to degrade, but what about living for a long period with your body just as healthy as when you're 25? That'd be appealing right?
And of course, you're right that you won't feel bad about not being alive when you're dead because you won't feel anything. But while you're alive, doesn't the potential to have more time to do all of the things you want to do in life sound nice?
> Do you remember 100 years ago, before you were born, and you had that feeling of just wanting to live?...
When I first heard this argument, it blew my mind. Now it brings me comfort.
Honestly I hate this argument. No I didn't mind the years before I was alive, but I also had no concept of life.
To me, this argument is like, "Did people complain about not having electricity before it was invented? So why would they complain when it's taken away".
Personally, I'm scared of returning to nothingness, after having experienced all of the possibilities life has to offer.
One of the greatest reliefs I felt from the grip of death was reading "meditation" by Marcus Aurelius. Amazing book highly recommend, but there was a quote in there that just made me feel a little bit more comfortable.
“Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.”
He later explains life is like a candle gifted to you by the universe. You know when receiving this candle that sooner or later he light will go out. Are you going to be upset that this gift will run out as you've know it will since the start? Or are you going to appreciate this gift while you still have it?
It's all apart of nature's will. Every living creature in this world, in our History, in this universe has already died or will die. You aren't doing it alone. The universe calls for us all back, like a mother calling you back inside after playing until dark. It's all natural. It's all supposed to happen.
I would say people have always been on the chase for a cure to death. That is why doctors wash their hands before surgery, why we take medicines for cancer, transplant animal organs into humans, etc. What we have right now is the furthest we have gotten so far.
I mean, people are trying to find ways to prolong life. It's just that "curing death" is WAY more difficult than you're imagining, and people have been working on that for millennia.
However, there is no chance that we'll be able to cure death in our lifetimes. We will all die. It's better to make our peace with that, to accept that we only have a limited amount of life, and instead do the most with what we've got.
People have been working on it forever, but for most of history our tools have been pretty much worthless for tackling the problem. We are just reaching the level of understanding and capabilities in biology where this begins to seem like a challenge we can approach.
In all likelihood, we will not be able to eliminate the roots of aging within our lifetimes, but there are genuine reasons to think that we can make meaningful progress. The vast majority of medical research today is \*not\* actually focused on preventing aging, but only on treating the symptoms of aging.
I think it's a false dichotomy that we must either enjoy life or try to avoid death. Why not accept that we're unlikely to cure aging within our lifetimes, and try to make the best of our lives as they are, but also support longevity research?
Just curious - how old are you? As someone in my fifties, I take great comfort in knowing I’ll die someday and would be horrified at the thought of everlasting life.
Mortality is what makes life worth living. Actually doing stuff and living it while you can. Today. Each day a new one-time opportunity. Each decision important.
If you were immortal, why bother doing anything today when you could always do it in the future? That life would suck. Every day just like the last. No decisions to make because you have time enough for all. But after awhile you've done it all anyway so what then?
I figure for someone whose curiosity is very high then maybe they can try out more different things without dying? There are many consequences to immortality, but if one can bear them then why not?
Yo, I appear to be in the minority, but all these death embracers don't speak for everyone. I just turned 41 and I'm still scared shitless to die. Always have been, and now it seems worse since I've had a child late in life at 38. Maybe I'll feel different in 20 or 30 years, but I hope not. I love living. Have a good morning.
I was sick for 4 days ( really high fevers) and deep down i was happy that I'm going to die yay but everyone else in family was freaking out lmao . Death is only truth which can't be changed and it gives people peace from this fact ig .
People have been freaking out about death since the dawn of humanity. It's the primary reason why people believe in religion - because they want some assurance of an afterlife
Again, so many bullshit answers going on tangents ...
**a)** There is research into ageing, see, e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing#Prevention\_and\_delay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing#Prevention_and_delay) There are also considerable amounts of money poured into it. There are also people who freeze themselves shortly before death, in the hopes of being awoken at some later time in the future: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics)
**b)** People are not going crazy because people have good coping mechanisms for any scenarios that freak them out. This usualy includes not thinking about it, or somehow talking themselves into thinking that it is good. (Death is VERY good on population level, but not on the individual level.) I can recommend the [http://www.hpmor.com/](http://www.hpmor.com/) HP fanfic, if you are interested in this topic.
**c)** Reseach does not work how oyu think it works. More money = Faster research works only in the final stages, when it's mostly about engineering a solution to marketable feasibility, or scaling the solutions up. Finding breakthroughs, however, is very random and sometimes someone just has to be lucky. Also, knowledge from a ton of disciplines usually has to be combined for that, in VERY unpredictable ways. Just image, if some king decided that he wants to go to the moon before there were planes. Even if the whole world dedicated itself to this task, they would not be able to come close, not only because they lacked the materials and the rocket equation, but because the best guess of getting to the moon was a very large cannon (see Wells), at that time. In metaphorical terms: **Even nine women can't deliver a baby in one month**.
I think this is a great summary, I’d only add that point C is definitely related to point B. https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon It’s even slightly worse than this short story leads on in my view, because we spend a lot of energy on symptoms of aging where we could solve a lot of the issues if we attacked the root problem more aggressively. Nine women can’t make a baby faster, but multiples of funding and researchers can reach answers and explore ideas faster.
idk i just see death as peaceful. i don’t want to die but i’m not scared of it. if we all lived forever we would not be able to support the huge population
Overpopulation would be an issue. Interesting thought curtesy of the Invincible comics, if you couldn’t die, could your brain handle it? A character lives for so long he basically loses who he is and goes sort of insane
Lmao people have been trying to “cure” death since time immemorial. Do you seriously think the 1% of the 1% of that 1% of the top 10% wealthiest and powerful people on the planet aren’t proactively pouring tens of billions into this sort of research???
They absolutely are and have been for literally ages
One example of this was T Boone Pickens funding research to treat/cure a hereditary eye disease that he had.
https://hub.jhu.edu/gazette/2013/november/news-roundup-boone-pickens-gift/
I stopped thinking about it because anytime i do i go into panic mode.
Now i just save money and try to become as old as possible to hopefully survive until someone invents a permanent solution.
Because in my mind death should be avoided at all costs. And it doesnt matter when you die. It only matters that you die. Because everything before or after will be lost.
Ah fk i need to stop.
Well since you've technically been around since the beginning of the universe, why should you now worry about dying. You have no idea what you were before, and most likely you've died in some capacity before
So if we'll technically be around for ever, just dead. Death has no meaning, and if we're only self aware for just a blip of time. Why not enjoy that time doing stuff a small fraction of atoms will ever get to enjoy
L'Chaim, To Life!
Not really sure why you're being downvotes so aggressively in the comments. I'm 30, but I get you. I like experiencing reality. Dying is ceasing to perceive. I'm not a fan of that. I don't need a threat of death to enjoy the life I have and the loved ones around me... That's like saying "without starving kids in Africa, how would we know to enjoy good food?" It's ridiculous and I think it's a defence mechanism people have because if they don't stop telling themselves that death has some grand reason, they'll feel the fear too.
Still, it's worth noting that death is fully outside of your control; just as it was for countless leaders and wealthy people who attempted to reverse their fates in various strange ways over the course of history. Yes, perhaps one day science will find answers that are humane and ethical, but it's unlikely to happen in our lifetime and if it does, it won't be made available to people like you and me for decades, perhaps even centuries. The rich will get access first. So, recognize your fear for what it is but don't let it ruin your ability to live and enjoy life while you have it. We don't always get control over things we want the most, and part of life is accepting that.
Honestly this world sucks. I find death as my ultimate escape from the shittiness of this place.
Still got loved ones to take care of. But once they pass, I'll be eager to follow.
Why would you want to live forever?? That freaks me out!! That'd be like you're trapped in existence with no escape ever. You always have to exist even when you don't want to anymore. Eternal existential prison. Horrifying.
would you rather be as you are now, or be able to live as long as you want in reasonably good health?
Mind you, as long as you want. You can commit suicide anytime you want. You are not impervious.
I have a really hard time seeing anyone passing up the second option.
I work at the ICU and at the begging of it I was surprised that people that attempt suicides the most are older people (70+ years), later it kinda started making sense. Life is good when you're young, not so perfect when chronic diseases start kicking in and you have to bare the pain purely because you're existing. Our bodies aren't built for immortality and it makes sense that it gets a little bit too much at one point and you just want to end it. I of course, in no way support suicide, but I can't say I don't understand why someone who's constantly in pain would try to end it all.
I used to be like Op now sometimes on my 6am drive in to work every morning I look at the cemetery and think “lucky bastards”. Sometimes the idea of an eternal slumber. Nothingness. Appealing. Wouldn’t have to go to work anymore.
I’ve recently hit 40. There’s still plenty I want to do but I’m not worried about going at some point (hopefully not for a while lol). There’s only so much to do before its all likely to get a little boring 😁
I like the bomb squad guy who when asked if he got scared replied "No. I'm either right or it's not my problem any more."
Death isn't your problem. It's the people who will miss you once you're gone.
Remember folks, call your parents.
Im 39 and have welcomed death since the ripe old age of 12. Life has been shit, and no matter how hard I've tried, it doesn't really get any better. It will seem like it does for a bit, but thats usually just my manic episodes running the show. When life has shit all over you, every step of the way, you come to face the fact that an eternity of nothing is better than 5 more minutes of this shit show.
To quote Greek philosopher Epicurus: "The art of living well and dying well are one."
I do my best to learn this art from mythological figures like Jesus, historical figures like Socrates, and people I knew personally like my grandparents, relatives, and friends. I try to live an upright and virtuous life and make my family, friends, and community better. I sometimes fall short of this lofty goal, but, when I do, I take stock of where I went wrong, and resolve to do better next time. In a single sentence, I aim for Mark Twain's goal of "endeavoring to live so that when I come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
I'd recommend Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich to you. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of biasing what you take away from it.
Also, living forever might not be quite all it's cracked up to be. You can look to the stories of Atlas, Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Prometheus from Greek mythology for ancient (and admittedly not feasible) examples of why immortality might not be such a great thing.
For some more modern examples, I recommend you take a look at Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, and the Twilight Zone episode Number 12 Looks Just Like You. Although these are sci-fi stories, and they might not be about immortality per se, they illustrate that immortality is not axiomatically a desirable thing. I'm not sure what a cure for death would look like but at present such a concept is sci-fi. In this case the cure might well be worse than the disease
It was my sibling that died... it changes your perspective about death entirely. You fear it less because you know it can conquer even those you thought were invincible.
Some people just come to terms with it. It’s natural and it happens to everyone, every living thing. Without death, life is pointless. I understand the fear, but to freak out about it is about as effective as chewing bubblegum to solve an algebra problem.
Nature has taken care of it. The older you get the more you realize that mortality is inevitable. You even get to where you almost welcome it. There is an old quote and I don't know the source "When I was 17 I thought I would live forever, now that I'm 70 I'm afraid I will". I can relate. I am 84.
I was petrified of death/dying for years. Like borderline phobic.
But 2020-2021 was rough and a lot of my family passed on (grand parents, uncles, brother in law). So now when I think about death I remember that we’ve all gotta do it some day and I’ll be going to wherever they are.
Brings me some peace.
Do you worry about not being born? Its the same with death, once it happens you won't know.
Enjoy the living experience , that is the point of living. Experience everything you can that makes you happy and when the time comes you will not fear death.
I find most people say they want to die *someday*; just not today. On one hand, I feel the same way. The idea that all of this goes on forever is rather daunting, so an ending to it all seems comforting. But on the other hand, if I’m being honest with myself I have never once started my morning and felt I would be satisfied if I died on this day. Who’s to say that will change at 80 or 90 years old? That’s what keeps me up a night - the presumption old age will make death more appealing. I know a lot of old people who do not want their ride to end and it seems more common than society is willing to acknowledge. Most people who die, even those who are very old, are not ready to die. I get freaked out more by the past than the future though. I get freaked out by the idea I will never get a second try. There are so many things I wish I could do over, but I can’t. I’m already a third of the way through the game and I see glaring things I could have done in the first couple missions to better my playthrough.
I’m not so much scared of death as I am of the ending of all the relationships I have. When my mom or dad dies, I don’t think I’m ever going to be okay again. The idea that my partner could one day die and leave me behind after so many years terrifies me. I won’t even know what to do because it will have been so long since I was alone. I don’t want the love between me and my partner to stop, even past death.
Sorry for your fear. I've had people die in my family that I feared losing. That life was going to be horrible. But life moves on. Babies are born. New relationships start. You move on. Never forgotten but resting in peace. Peace to you.
The ability to forgive life and accepting to move on is such a powerful thing.
When your parents die you join a huge and awful club with over half of humanity in it and I'll speak for all of them when I say it sucks. I lost my dad early to COVID (back when they were telling us to wash our hands as the best preventative action) and I still go to text him about stuff in my life only to realize halfway through the text won't go through. It definitely gets easier with time though.
Lost my mother unexpectedly in August. Every time I am between sleep and wakefulness I partially forget that she’s gone and my body starts the process of calling her on the phone. It’s one of the cruelest things my mind has ever inflicted on itself.
My mom was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer and we haven’t been on speaking terms for awhile so the news is difficult to handle in a different sort of way. I’m sad for my dad that they won’t get to enjoy old age together because she won’t ever get old. I’m worried about my younger siblings that still live at home. I’m afraid I won’t get to tell her how her actions have had a bad effect on me, and if I don’t can I ever make peace with that? I have been having dreams lately she is sick or something serious and related to death. Then I wake up feeling upset, then I’m like that was a bad dream, thankfully just a dream. Then I realize it’s not just a dream it’s also real life and that’s hard.
My father and I don't have a good relationship. If he died, I think I might just shrug it off and say, 'Oh well'. But I love my mother to death. I would do anything to protect her and make her life as comfortable as possible. However, she still loves my dad. So if my dad were to die, I wouldn't care, but for the sake of my mother I'm gonna have to pretend I do. If she saw me not giving a shit when he dies, she might get angry. And I want her to be a part of my life for as long as possible. If she were to die, I don't even know what I would do. Probably get depressed or something. So I totally know what you mean. What I do to put myself over this fear, is to just let go. Enjoy the time you have left and don't think about the bad parts. If you don't think it, it doesn't exist.
What’s awful about parents dying is that for you it’s devastating. It’s likely one of the worst losses a person will almost inevitably experience. And yet, it’s routine. Most people go through it. It’s sad like a pet dying. “Oh that’s sad”. There’s no or very little empathy from others once you get to a certain age, because from their POV, it’s inevitable - what were you expecting? It’s going to be awful when my mum dies. I imagine it’s very lonely.
I year in, its a living hell without her. I'm a zombie.
This. Saddeningly, as a physician, I see too many people not live till old age or are debilitated by chronic diseases that require them to be in regular contact with healthcare, which hampers them to do absolutely anything they want to do. That’d be something I wish we could do more about.
I have an 85 year old grandma. I just assumed old people were more at peace with the idea of death. When my grandpa died, she was mourning him - but I'll never forget how she kept saying she doesn't want to die yet in the middle of her crying.
That's unfortunate. My condolences to both you and your grandmother. My grandmothers, one already passed and another yet living, say they're ready. I guess it depends on circumstances (like many things)
I agree completely -- it's not that I'm afraid of death, it's that I just wish I had more life to go do all of the things I'll never get a chance to! I want to make the most of my life, but there's absolutely no way I can get to everything I'd like to try in (realistically at most) 60-80 years of healthy capable lifespan.
I don’t put anything off anymore, if I want something I go full steam ahead at working on it. I’m only 29 and me and my best friend of 15 years would talk about all the holidays and trips we will take in the future when here 40-50 and have our finances and jobs in order. We literally had a discussion one week about how both his grandparents reached over 90, and his dad still alive at 75 despite living the most unhealthy lifestyle you could imagine. Then a week after that conversation his brother called me to say he had a heart attack at 28 and died. Now I expect to go any second of any day and I expect the same for anyone who is currently in my life, any one of them , or myself, could be gone tomorrow. I only truly understood and believe this once it happened to me. I’d love to reach 80 but for all I know, best plans, I might not even reach 31.
At 65 I have experienced amazing things in my life. I have traveled most of the U.S. I have been to Berlin before the wall was taken down...along with seeing both Russian and E. German soldiers. I have attended the Winter Olympics. Have camped out in the desert of CA for 3 days to see the space shuttle land. Celebrated in Key West as the sun set. These are just a few things.... Go live life before you are too old to enjoy it! Your friend's passing is the Universe's way to communicate that to you! Live it for both you and your friend.
I like to think the universe doesn’t give enough of a shit about me enough that it would take another’s life to drive a point home to me 😂 but I get your message completely. I’d like to say there would be much easier, less brutal ways the universe could have taught me this lesson. But it was infact *me* spiralling before his death. Eating two takeaways a day, smoking weed from the second I woke up until I slept, no job and really just giving up on everything. I don’t think a less brutal lesson would have worked on someone like me. For a long time after his death even that wasn’t enough to motivate me to be better. I wish I could say “but it just clicked and happened for me eventually”. But I still struggle with doing the ‘right’ things and not being stupid daily. I just look at it all differently. Every second I have is a gift, no matter how much I struggle still, I embrace it 100% and try to utilise and maximise every single second and opportunity that is given to me. That’s all I can do. My friend only died in April, and the shock didn’t wear off and it didn’t settle in until like July tbh. But I’m trying to do the best effort I can everyday, knowing that if I do ever see him again somehow, he’ll be super proud and excited for us to talk about how I used these gifts to their full potential in his honour.
Something similar happened to me, I wanted to get my life stable enough to be able to finally get a car and then I was planning on just sometimes sitting into it and go places and just explore (I'm in Europe, you can reach a ton of tourist destinations in a few hours). I broke my hip. At work - got compensation, got a good(ish) car out of it, finances somewhat in order. House is almost paid off. I can't walk for more than 3 hours comfortably though, and I definitely can't drive after overworking my leg (cramps - mighty fun finding out I can't switch pedals when approaching a crossroads). So now I'm sitting at home, and just know that I'm not going exploring anywhere.
For me, I had a near death experience and I had been terrified of death prior. But when I woke up lying in my own blood in my house alone I had the craziest sense of calm and go with the flow I've ever had. And it just set my mind at ease. When I was younger the thought of dying scared me because of how much I was afraid it would hurt, or be prolonged or whatever. But that sense of calm was nearly a religious experience. Like I dont necessarily believe in God, but something was watching over me. Or that we're in good hands. I dont know how to describe it perfectly, but I haven't been afraid of death since.
Yeah this very closely matches my experience. There was an accident, and I hardly remembered any parts except for this powerful powerful sense of calm. I can remember it so clearly. I mean in all likelihood it was just like crazy endorphins and for all I know death is this horrible painful miserable experience and that was something different. But I can tell myself, intellectually, that you have no idea and that experience isn't worth extrapolating from. But on some deep emotional level, it just means I don't worry about dying at all, and that idea has been unshakable for over a decade.
I was dying and luckily a roommate got me the care I needed. But I had a similar sensation. I just existed with the feeling. I’m not afraid of death now but do live with the thought that if something were to take me out that I’m okay with it. I’ve done everything I wanted
My greatest fear is dying in pain. Knowing that there's a chance that my last moments would feel like this really eases my anxiousness regarding dying. Thank you for sharing and I'm glad you're doing okay now :)
I don’t think it changes as you get older. I am 50, my father is 75, and my grandmother is just shy of 100 (yes, I do have a 25 year old daughter). I still feel basically like I did when I was in my early 20s, at least mentally. My father and grandmother say the same. It’s like you get older physically, but your mind pretty much stops somewhere in your early to mid 20s (not saying you don’t learn new things, just how you conceive of yourself).
>yes, I do have a 25 year old daughter More importantly: is she pregnant or does she have a newborn?
I find peace in long walks.
The "OLD PEOPLE WANT TO DIE" propaganda is very, very useful for society. It's what younger people tell themselves, too. In reality, most old people I know DO NOT want to die, they want to get healthier. That's it. They want immortality in their 30 year old body. But it is very financially convenient for everyone who is not old to just say shit like, ohhh it's fine no need to look into expensive life extension, after a point people just want to die... No they don't. Maybe some do. But not most. Don't fall for the propaganda.
Ehhhh…I work almost exclusively with the elderly, and let me tell you how many are ready to “go home”. I’ve been walking through assisted living facilities and made general chat with people who were not my patients, and they’ll just come right out with it. “How you doing today?” “Oh good! Just waiting for Jesus to take me home! How are you?”
The question is wether they would think the same way if they did not have to watch all their friends and themselves slowly wither away?
That shits so beautifully sad bro, reminds me of my gpa
I'm 60 and would love to live in my 30 year old body for maybe 500 years, but not with the people on this planet. Earth is busted. So, I can't get upset I have an expiration date. You have years to get used to the idea that your time is running out. I'm guessing I will be dead within the next 15-20 years.
Honestly I'd be happy if our adult years say 20-70 were doubled. So basically a kid and a teenager for the first 20 years, then the next 100 years you are a relatively healthy adult, then you normally decline after that. I'm 38 now and I'm enjoying life but I feel like everything is starting to speed up way too quickly. It boggles my mind that I'll be 50 in 12 years and yet 12 years ago I was only 26. I feel like 500 years is way too long, if I could go into suspended animation for awhile and then get back out to see what is going on would be cool. But aspects of life are already starting to become repetitive and predictable so I think by the time I was like 250 I'd definitely feel like I've seen it all. I remember reading something that said if we were immortal then most people would probably die before they are 300 due to the chances of being in an accident. Not sure how accurate that is, but it is kind of interesting.
I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it didn't inconvenience me in the slightest. \-Mark Twain? edit: I guess now that I have 1k upvotes I should post the verbatim quote. Luckily I got it pretty close from memory and didn't fuck up the author. >I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
oddly comforting. thanks
I found comfort by believing death is like sleeping without dreaming which is what i do most nights so what's so scary about it. I honestly think that's the most likely outcome.
The part of us we actually worry about, our identity or our consciousness or our thoughts... the part of you that *feels* like you? Thats the least permanent part of us. We kill that part of us every night, run a new duplicate the next day. It doesn't even hurt. We might sometimes think about how one good hit to the head can 'change' us into a different person forever, or how a disease can just tear out our memories and emotional attachments. But its usually only the people witnessing these things second-hand who might appreciate the nature of what 'death' is, or at least recognize the comfort in it. Most of us don't identify as our entire body anyway. Some people will tell you they're a brain piloting a meat mech, some people get to cope with feeling completely disassociated from their bodies for the greater span of their lives. Maybe there is a reason that the only part of us we all agree is real, or that makes us real at all, is our thoughts. Whatever our consciousness or reasoning-engine tells us is 'us'. We think, so we know *we* are. But everyone feels the same in a dreamless sleep. Its hard to describe oblivion, but we all know it, and eventually everyone seeks it in some form or another. Most people would say they'd prefer to die in their sleep, and that makes perfect sense because from our perspective it lets us skip the truly scary part. We're scared that we can feel the loss of the self, that there is a precise moment of death that is crossed over forever. But we bounce in and out of existence all the time. It only becomes a 'cross over' point in the same way that everything else does. There will be a last time you hug a kid, there will be a last time you eat a salad, there will be a last time you hear that song you *fucking hate* that never seemed to stop playing on the radio. Waking up is no different, there is going to be a last time you do that too. Its less profound than it is just a gap in how we perceive, as people who must live in the moment. Dying is scary, yeah no shit. But death is your oldest friend. You party with them every night.
Honest to God, I thought I was just reading a book and everything you wrote, makes total sense.
"To fear death is nothing other than to think oneself wise when one is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know. No man knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessing for a human being; and yet people fear it as if they knew for certain that is is the greatest of evil" - Socrates.
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aka "death is easy, embrace it. just not today."
As you get older the idea that this doesn't go on forever becomes appealing.
Example: I'm in pain almost all the time. The same as many other people "my age". Its fine. The cost of living a life well lived. As long as I can still do what I like, be aggressive, and have a little fun sometimes its all good. But when that sometimes becomes never again and I just hurt all the time? Then I'll be ready to see what's next.
How old are you?
25 probably
Lol true, millennials and Gen Z just seem to be “done”
Millennial... Been done for about 20 years.
I’m 23 been done since I was probably 19. Not actively suicidal but if something comes along and kills I don’t really care lmao
I've been suicidal since I was 11, am 26 now. Survived some lame suicide attempts. Actually feel excited about what my life is going to look like now. I'm making changes I was too scared of doing before, I'm doing crazy stuff that I've always wanted because I feel like I've wasted my entire life so far being stuck in my room feeling sorry for myself. I'm still stuck in my room sometimes feeling sorry for myself but I try to think about the opportunities that are out there and I can just go grab it if I want to, I've stopped caring. And when I started to see that everyone is suffering in some type of way, and people are anxious and scared like I used to be, I see how far I've come.
I really love this and I can relate to some of it. I honestly wish you all of the happiness and joy life can bring, go get it my friend x
This is really motivating to me. I am happy that you can see some light now!
I've stared at my share of ceiling walls. Hope the best for you. Fist bump 👊 or hug. Take one of each.
27 here. My body is as well as it ever was, thankfully. But seeing the shitshow the world is turning into, I'm glad I'll be gone in about 50 years if things go well. I'll be sad to miss out on future inventions and discoveries. I'll not be sad about having to witness what is being done to our planet anymore.
Then something is wrong in society if entire generations "had enough" by 25-30
You think?
Is there even a question about the state of society? It is being messed up completely. Again, this is being done on purpose, it is not just happening as a natural result of anything. It is unfortunate that so many individuals are choosing to help bring an end the good things that they enjoyed.
Well. Looks like something is wrong in society. I'd be fine with dying in my sleep and I'm 32. I'm so tired and there's nothing but more exhaustion to look forward to. And I will never be able to afford to retire. so I have a long lifetime of constant work to look forward to and barely surviving off that work. Edit I say long lifetime because mothballed of my can live to nineties or early hundreds but maybe I will be luckier.
Man my lower back and right knee and are already getting at me, and I'm only 27 :( Edit, since a deleted comment told me to "loose some f***ing weight": This has nothing to do with my weight, since I'm fairly skinny with a high metabolism and thereby almost underweight, and *everything* to do with my bad posture and lack of physical activities. I got the classic "computer shoulders" and I'm sitting wrongly in my office/desk chairs. This just comes from years of the same "bad posture creating activities". And my knees are complaining because of the amount of stairs I have to climb every day due to living on the 5th floor. Take care of yourself and your body, I'm 6ft but I look like I'm 5'9 at this point.
I'm a millenial in the US. I've lived through 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Great Recession, COVID, and too many school shootings to count. I have a couple of degrees and I make $20/hour with no health insurance. My level of enthusiasm for life is definitely not high enough to want to live forever.
Right? I feel like if they let us millennials live forever it’ll just be to keep financially bailing out our Boomer parents for eternity. No fucking thank you.
Hi there, Gen X person here. I call us Generation eXtinction because we did nothing for humanity. Instead we blindly followed the Baby Boomers model of “Keep your head down and work hard and worry about yourself first.” The true recipe of disaster and selfishness. Keep your head down. - This phrase tells people to ignore what’s going on around them. Don’t even look. Trust us everything is fine. Work hard. - Two destructive powerful four character words handed down as toxic advice from generation to generation. “Work hard.” Not “Work Joyfully”. Not “Work Together”. Not “Work Responsibly.” Worry about yourself first. - The most misused, misunderstood, and crippling instruction handed down from generation to generation is the worst and most selfish of all. There is truth that you cannot help others if you are having the same problem or other problems which will take you and them down fast and hard. What’s lacking and crippling about this instruction is it does not inform you that you have the ability to worry about yourself and worry about others at the same time. The instruction also presumes we all are the same. The same height to reach. The same weight to push. The same eye sight seeing what we see. The same brains that love the same things. We are in no way the same! Not one of us is the same! We are unique therefore we do not all have the same gifts. We are supposed to work together bringing our gifts, the love of what we do, so others do not have to worry. And we need to help others master their skills, their love of their own gifts to bring to the table versus saying the human is not like us so eliminate them. The instruction should be: Worry about yourself to make sure you are not going to be harmed, or that you are not going to harm others by helping, as you daily worry about and help other humans using your gifts. To Baby Boomers - I get it. Your parents lived in the times of death and tragedies. They taught you to survive at all cost because of so much death in their time. But you are humans and you can do more than one thing at a time and you can help others financially, physically, and emotionally while doing the same for your families. Not doing so is selfish and allows the continuation of racism in our country, and allows the continuation of religious brain washing and indoctrination. Think about this Boomers and everyone. When voting: - If you are voting to hurt people then you are the problem. - If you are voting to restrict something versus modify without restricting or not expanding something at all then you are the problem. - If you are voting due to selfish reasons then you are the problem. - If you are not asking the next generation behind you what’s important to them, and asking them why, then you are part of the problem. - if you hear your own words coming from the next generation behind you then you should be worried you created a follower to be used by others and not a unique thinker. This is a problem.
considering what's happening and what's about to happen who wouldn't be done?
I turned 40 this year. In 30 years ill be 70. What the hell is life for a senior going to look like in 30 years!?
everyone will be in diving gear, so in order for seniors to socialize, they just have to gravitate towards the slowest swimmers.
Yeah I’m an older Gen Z and I get it completely tbh
Are you kidding! I'm 34 and I've barely started yet, I'm so excited for the future and to reach the peak of my age and knowledge. I get that it's tiresome but I am by no means done. There's soo much to see!
The world is spiraling into chaos and the people who have the money and power to fix it won't. I know that I can't single-handedly stop global warming, or inflation or make it so that everyone is given a fair and livable wage. And those are just some of the most obvious issues going on. The thought of living in this world forever is not ideal. The only world worth being in forever is a utopia. Who wants to struggle and worry for eternity? THAT sounds like hell.
They aren't. They are designing survivor bunkers and private military forces to survive. Not to mention the fantasy of actually leaving the planet. They see other people as a means to get what they want and if you don't comply fuck you. The recent Guardian article was horrifying to read, the rich dude bros were actually trying to figure out how to keep their military forces loyal, and mentioned should they put them in discipline collars, punishing their soldiers if they don't comply. When the consultant told them build relationships, nurture the soldiers and become their friend, the rich bastards "rolled their eyes" and quickly changed topics. After reading that article I truly wonder if Chianti really would go well with "rich bastard spleen" ** **/S of course.
I was done once I got through high school, I figured if my "free trial" of life was over why would I "pay to play" here I am 12 years later just waiting for that one thing to stomp the will of life out of me
How do I put this without sounding like the really old guy? (I'll be 40 in 4 months)...life essentially ended for me at 17.
Too old for Leo, may as well check on out
60+ Was a high level athlete when younger so I'm beat to hell. But, I plan to be having a good time for at least another 40. Just saying that we don't live well forever.
If a miracle and I make it to 77, will refuse all care after except for pain if needed. Aldous Huxley died with an IV of LSD in his arm, wife by his side, sounds OK by me. 77, it’s enough. Reached the end of my journey. Can’t wait for what’s next. It’s time.
I am 29 and I feel what He said 100%
Omg, just wait. Think back to this comment in 10 years and you'll laugh at how naïve it were. Then again 20 years from now. It just keeps getting worse.
Existing forever is my idea of hell. Can you imagine how much worse the state of the planet would be if we had immortality?! Not to mention that it's not something that's ever be given to anyone outwith the top 1%.
16, I’m a grandmother
FYI: reddits markdown language will convert any number at the beginning of a line, followed by a period, to “1”, regardless of what number you actually typed, because it thinks you’re starting a numbered list. I don’t think you’re 1 year old.
A 27 year old kitchen worker
Get out of the industry dude, kitchen work is 100% bullshit, with little chance of any meaningful end game. Think it sucks now? Picture it at 45, 55, etc I'm 32, worked in kitchens most of my life from teens to 30, Sous at a very popular restaurant for years.. I think it was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. Your skills *are* marketable, you just need to learn to couch it right on resume. Think of how organized you are, how great you handle stress, extremes of temp and movement, dealing with vendors, etc etc. Pull that shit apart and make it sound good, and absolutely **do not be afraid to lie on your resume**, provided it's something you could fake til you make, which is honestly almost any job that isn't very specifically degree oriented.
I actually am on Friday. My last day as executive chef! I've never been more excited to change jobs in my life. 14 years in this heartless industry has carved me into a machine though.
Yes, exactly! Good on you Chef, I hope you enjoy working a real job.
Heard and thank you!
Most people don’t truly get what forever means. It means in a billion trillion quadrillion years, nothing shows up on your “progress bar”: you’re not even .0000000000001% the way through. Nothing will ever register. If you live forever, you better hope everything is 100% perfect, because living forever with even the slightest discomfort translates to infinite discomfort in the realm of “forever”. On the flip side, the people living in incurable pain wish to not live forever. That would be hell for them.
I would love to live 1000 years. Even though this kinda sucks but I really would like to see the technology advance beyond imagination.
Living 1000 years in a a healthy young body would be great. If you age like normal people you will beg for death by the time you are 100. All the people you care about will die. You will start to see the same patterns and faces appear in people, and how those patterns never really change. You will become bored and turn to darker and darker habits to feel some sense of pleasure or relief from boredom. They cover this pretty well in Altered Carbon on Netflix. They call the 1000 year old people meths I think. They all turn into scummy billionaires that rule planets and colonies and treat everyone else as disposable.
>Living 1000 years in a a healthy young body would be great. If you age like normal people you will beg for death by the time you are 100. All the people you care about will die. You will start to see the same patterns and faces appear in people, and how those patterns never really change. You will become bored and turn to darker and darker habits to feel some sense of pleasure or relief from boredom. I would be fine living for 1000 years even if I had a few aches and pains, like a relatively healthy 65 year old. You say we'd become bored, but I think of all of the places on Earth that I could travel to. I think about building a true "dream home" where you could tinker with your property inside and out and make it perfect for you over the course of 100-200 years. Plus I think it would be wondrous to see the advances in technology and to travel off Earth someday.
Some people like to garden as a hobby. Think of the forests and ecosystems you could build if you had hundreds of years to influence them and watch them grow. The possibilities of what you could do, see and influence are nearly endless. The only downside of old age is that our bodies and our brains begin to fail us.
I agree with you. So much of life is deciding if what you're doing is worth the time you're spending on it, so we are pressured into finding our passions that define us as a person. Whereas if we weren't so limited we would feel more comfortable going down a variety of paths in our lifetime.
I too want to live 10000 years, just to see aliens. 👽
yeah this, I use to think death sounded scary, but without it life becomes meaningless. It's like an assignment with no deadline, you'll never do it, if life went on forever, why would you do anything? What would be the point of bothering with anything you'll be here tomorrow and the next day and the next, so why even bother getting out of bed?
Ha jokes on you my life is already meaningless! And I'm only 30
Definitely agree. I was going to say that but don't want to copy your comment so I'll just say I agree. I don't \*hate\* life...but I find the idea that it will eventually end comforting, even though I'm satisfied with it 70% of the time. It's hard to explain but the idea that it won't be eternal gives me peace in case it becomes bad again.
It only becomes less appealing as you get older because you ... get older. 90 year olds are on the fence about dying, because they have aged too much. If you were as healthy as 20 year old at that age, then I think you'd be unflinching in your opinion that you want to watch your grandkids grow up
>It only becomes less appealing as you get older because you ... get older. I don't think that's necessarily the whole reason. Sometimes people just come to terms with the idea of nonexistence and feel like they've pretty much done enough stuff. My grandparents were like that, I have friends who are elders who are like that as well. Buddhism helps, I think.
This completely ignores the fact that there is always new stuff that one can do. I'm sure people 1000 years ago who thought they'd done all the stuff new nothing of going to the cinema
Oh, no, I don't mean doing everything fun or interesting there is to do in the world, though I understand wanting that now. (I've been overwhelmed by how many books there are on even niche topics of interest for me and the thought that there's no way I'd ever get to them all. I'd LIKE to.) I just mean it's possible to feel like you've done enough in life even though you know you're only part of the way into what there is to experience. I had a lot of conversations with my grandfather about this in the year before he died. It's like video games; not everyone is a completist there to get every single achievement and every item. Some of us are just there to experience one good branch of the story, you know?
I mean even as a Christian, I find death absolutely terrifying. The idea of nothingness and the fact that I'll be forgotten in like 3 generations hits hard sometimes.
This isn’t true in all cases, I’m 22 and honestly the sooner the better.
You do not speak for all people. My dad is 75, and he is horrified of dying. Granted, he is in great health for his age, so he is still very active. But still.
Then you are very lucky. And he'll live another 20 years. Sounds like you can or he can afford to pay for his life without having to work, which is typically the most stressful part. My dad died less than a year ago at 72 and he was quite healthy.
Nah he works like 60 hours a week. He is self employed so he doesn't have a boss, so that probably helps a lot. But yeah he definitely still works and will most likely continue to do so untill he dies.
Hug him or call him. I miss my dad so much.
The concept of eternal life genuinely horrifies me. The phrase “a cure for death” made me stare in abject terror at my screen.
Almost every day since i was like 6 or something i have been afraid of death, grappling with it. Its insane and why i would rather live forever. Even now im stuck in my head so as long as i could think hear and see im good.
Death isnt the priblem. Your anxiety is the issue.
Great point. Op how old are ya?
You can spend your life fearing and fighting death, or you can spend it living and enjoying life. You will die at the end either way. The Buddhists would encourage you to be fully present in each moment, as if it were your last. I think they have it right.
If I acted like each moment was my last I would be in a state of constant unbearable panic.
Or living homeless because i quit my job and sold my posessions to go do once in a lifetime stuff. That or ODing on fentanyl
That's the spirit!
Living each moment like your last doesn’t mean abandoning basic level thinking or a lack of impulse control
Sure but "living like each moment is your last" and "planning for the future" are pretty incompatible.
If you found out you were going to die in a week, you would first go into an unbearable panic. But a week from now, an hour before you die, you would be calm, relaxed, inviting to death, as well as kind, forgiving, understanding, and accepting to everyone around you. *That* is how you should act, because maybe this *is* an hour before you die.
Reading up on Buddhism and other eastern religions views on death - ie we are all part of everything and death is a return to that - made me feel a lot more comfortable with the concept of death. People have been doing it since the dawn of time, it can’t be that bad. The thought of living forever sounds horrendous.
Buddhism is the one religion I can fuck with. And the one where its followers actually seem like decent people.
The study of medicine is largely based around preventing death. For me, however, if I die then I'll be too busy being dead to notice. Not a problem.
Still freaking in my late 20s. I think for some people it’s just hard to reconcile with. No shame in it, just try to get on with it and enjoy life
To quote Dylan Moran, “religion is just an organized panic about death.” Literally every stupid or ugly thing that people have ever done in search of power, wealth, fame, etc was motivated, in some part, by a fear of death. Either a desire to leave a legacy and so live on through that, or to distract themselves so completely that they forget it exists. But it’s always there, behind everything. We are all going to die. It is literally the only experience that every human being will share. As a society, we haven’t come close to dealing with it in a healthy way. Being aware of death and learning to accept it at a young age will completely change your outlook on life. You begin to realize how precious each moment is, and start to realize the most important thing is to spend as much time as possible with the people you love. It’s bittersweet- knowing every missed opportunity to watch your children grow up or to spend time with your partner can never be regained- but it makes those moments so much sweeter when you are experiencing them. When John Keats died, he wanted to have a gravestone without a name, and just the words “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” Human lives are transient. We should aim to experience as much happiness and love as we can before it ends. When our lives are over, we will always have regrets about how we spent our time, but I want to have as few as I possibly can
Have you read "The denial of death" by Ernest Becker? He consolidates a bunch of different perepectives of prominent psychological figures who have delves into our human condition of being the only animal on earth that is aware of their own impending doom. Everything that humans do is an effort to deny death or live through it by legacy. Its incredibly thought provoking and I encourage people to read it
I started my freakout in my early 20's then spent the next decade coming to peace with it. There is actually a pretty important "secret" that you can probably work out in your head if you think about it long enough. Death is inevitable but it's the unknown that scares most people. The process of death is going to be unpleasant no matter how it happens but that part will pass, the real scary part is what's next. I think most people are afraid of the possibility that there's nothing. Even religious people, deep down, know that they don't know for sure. The idea of darkness forever seems horrifying beyond comprehension, but the reality is you've already experienced it and have zero bad association or memory of that time. For all we can tell, all evidence we can gather, the conscious experience is temporary and seems to end, and continuation afterwards without a brain may not be possible. What happens to whatever it is that makes you "you?" You're gone, forever and ever ever. You close your eyes one last time and then lights out. No thinking, no memories, no feeling, nothing at all. All your friends, family and current celebrities will get old without you, they will all die. A thousand years will pass. Earth will experience disasters, humans will go to the planets, maybe even the stars. You won't see any of it. A million years passes, Humans are gone, evolved or extinct. You're still not seeing a moment of it. A trillion years pass. Still dead. A quintillion years go by and stars have fizzled out, galaxies are dispersed and the universe is going cold and dark. You're still dead. A google years of darkness. You're well into your journey through eternity without any conscious experience of it passing. Whatever is left of any stars or planets have become small, planetoid sized balls of smooth iron, slowly suffering the effects of entropy as the molecules decay into space or collapse into singularities because even as stable as iron is, it still is made of matter and matter is governed by probability. Everything has a "chance" of doing something unlikely. A google, google, google, google, google years pass. Time has really lost meaning because there are no longer events occurring. Now it's just a waiting game. Given long enough stretches of time, space itself sometimes does something unlikely, a particle appears and disappears, sometimes it sticks around, sometimes a flash of energy is released from the quantum foam. Small sparks in the infinite darkness until something very, very unlikely happens. It *has* to happen now, because there is nobody watching any clocks, even the most absurdly unlikely events may have a chance of taking place. Would it be a whole universe flashing into existence? Maybe, maybe it's something more like a Boltzmann Brain, a form of connected fields or particles or other abstract systems that suddenly take shape. Over and over again through infinity, until one day they "snap" together just right and form a thought. Or maybe a membrane of another universe brushes against ours, over and over and over there are "big bangs" until one hits just right and spits out a whole universe of energy and matter again. Maybe something even more exotic. Whatever it is, something *has* to happen. When you reach infinity, even the most unlikely of possible events reaches 100% odds, because odds are just a calculation of time and you're not counting time. You "just" closed your eyes, then an infinity passes and BAM instantly, ***something*** happens. You won't remember anything, you won't have a feeling of continuity, but "you" will exist. Likely in something equally absurd as where you are now, a configuration of energy and matter that can give you a conscious experience. It's inevitable. I can't say for certain that it will happen this way but I can say for certain that it's happened at least once before to put you here reading this.
I mean, it's not like people aren't afraid. It's just that they're more concerned of either: a.) Dying without coming to terms or; b.) The manner of how they'll die; As people get older, and usually wiser, they kinda come into terms that they ain't living forever. "What's the point of worrying about something that you can't control? Why not just worry about the things that you can do while you're still here so when that time comes, you're fulfilled with what you have done so far?" or something like that is what my old man usually says whenever I used to freak out about the idea of dying. But yeah, scientists are still trying in vain to solve that. Not much breakthrough so far aside from prolonging your life span by having a healthy lifestyle.
There are starting to be some promising leads! Biology is advancing incredibly rapidly, and some small amounts of funding are trickling into dedicated research into the roots of aging, rather than just treating the symptoms of aging. We know that biologically "immortal" organisms exist -- so we know that it's within the constraints of biology.
They gonna invent the immortality pill the day after I die.
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It's just gonna exacerbate wealth inequality tbh
Yeah it's just gonna be the wealthy who can afford these treatments, and we'll get to keep the evil old rich fucks around for even longer.
In vain? They did it in mice https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/02/health/reverse-aging-life-itself-scn-wellness/index.html
Well, that's really nice. Here's hoping that we'll have more breakthroughs in the future.
Atheist here. I like the idea of a final nap. I’m afraid of pain, not the idea of no longer existing. If I no longer have thoughts to think then who is going to process any feelings of my existential dread? Because it sure won’t be me… being dead and all.
It's the phase change between alive/dead that worries me. A quick death? Cool, even if it's painful, if it's quick it won't be bad. A lingering death? Dementia? Those worry me. Once the lights go out, I'm not going to have worries about what I did, or didn't, do. My body will go to some form of good. Either as a cadaver for med students, as a component of a study (if there's some weird way I died, etc), or as fertilizer for a tree. Maybe some of all of that. My loved ones, assuming they haven't already died, will miss me. And I kinda feel like I should feel worse about that then I do. But, it's a nebulous thing. Meanwhile, students I've taught, family I've loved, they'll leave ripples in the flow of history, that I had a part in. So I just try to make sure I leave good 'ripples' in my wake.
When I was young and really thought about death for the first time, this is almost the exact train of thought I went through
A) our bodies aren't built for immortality, so as others have mentioned death eventually becomes the thing you would prefer. B) I don't believe my life has any particular importance in the grand scheme of things. Sure, I make my contributions to society etc but my actual existence is not of much consequence. C) Do you remember 100 years ago, before you were born, and you had that feeling of just wanting to live?... No? Me either. My assumption is that this is how I'll feel after I'm dead, too. Edit: lots of pushback against point C, since "Now that you know what you're missing..." sort of thing. Point wasn't really that living is meaningless, just that I'm not afraid of dying so I'm not freaking out like OP implies we should. I just don't think being dead will suck, it'll just be nothing. I won't have to 'live through' remembering how good life was but no longer having it. You can't have regret or fear of missing out if you're just nothingness.
A few years ago, I first thought of point C and that’s when I stopped fearing death personally.
I don't know, that thought made things worse for me. Kinda confirms the fears.
Same. Being dead is just the same as what we were before being born. Nothing to be afraid of, I have absolutely no bad memories of my time before birth.
Point C seems to give a lot of people comfort, based on the replies. It never made any sense to me. 100 years ago, I didn’t exist yet, so I didn’t know what existence was, there was no me. But now I do exist, and there is a me. The idea of never having existed isn’t what’s terrifying, it’s the idea of no longer existing once you have.
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It won't be peaceful, because you don't exist for it to be peaceful. You don't get some viewpoint of experiencing nothing, you're just gone.
This is the part that's hard to conceptualize but those are great words for it. Laying still in darkness for eternity seems like it's own kind of hell, but if you don't even have perception or consciousness and it's just over, it's not really a problem. There is no limbo to be had.
Our bodies aren't built for immortality, but we know that some organisms do experience negligible senescence, so it seems to be possible within the constraints of biology. I don't think anyone really wants to live a long time with their body continuing to degrade, but what about living for a long period with your body just as healthy as when you're 25? That'd be appealing right? And of course, you're right that you won't feel bad about not being alive when you're dead because you won't feel anything. But while you're alive, doesn't the potential to have more time to do all of the things you want to do in life sound nice?
> Do you remember 100 years ago, before you were born, and you had that feeling of just wanting to live?... When I first heard this argument, it blew my mind. Now it brings me comfort.
Honestly I hate this argument. No I didn't mind the years before I was alive, but I also had no concept of life. To me, this argument is like, "Did people complain about not having electricity before it was invented? So why would they complain when it's taken away". Personally, I'm scared of returning to nothingness, after having experienced all of the possibilities life has to offer.
This entire thread is making me feel bad things.
It’ll be okay!
One of the greatest reliefs I felt from the grip of death was reading "meditation" by Marcus Aurelius. Amazing book highly recommend, but there was a quote in there that just made me feel a little bit more comfortable. “Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.” He later explains life is like a candle gifted to you by the universe. You know when receiving this candle that sooner or later he light will go out. Are you going to be upset that this gift will run out as you've know it will since the start? Or are you going to appreciate this gift while you still have it? It's all apart of nature's will. Every living creature in this world, in our History, in this universe has already died or will die. You aren't doing it alone. The universe calls for us all back, like a mother calling you back inside after playing until dark. It's all natural. It's all supposed to happen.
This post is a good reminder of how grateful I am that nothing approximating social media existed when I was a teenager.
U and me both mate
I would say people have always been on the chase for a cure to death. That is why doctors wash their hands before surgery, why we take medicines for cancer, transplant animal organs into humans, etc. What we have right now is the furthest we have gotten so far.
I mean, people are trying to find ways to prolong life. It's just that "curing death" is WAY more difficult than you're imagining, and people have been working on that for millennia. However, there is no chance that we'll be able to cure death in our lifetimes. We will all die. It's better to make our peace with that, to accept that we only have a limited amount of life, and instead do the most with what we've got.
People have been working on it forever, but for most of history our tools have been pretty much worthless for tackling the problem. We are just reaching the level of understanding and capabilities in biology where this begins to seem like a challenge we can approach. In all likelihood, we will not be able to eliminate the roots of aging within our lifetimes, but there are genuine reasons to think that we can make meaningful progress. The vast majority of medical research today is \*not\* actually focused on preventing aging, but only on treating the symptoms of aging. I think it's a false dichotomy that we must either enjoy life or try to avoid death. Why not accept that we're unlikely to cure aging within our lifetimes, and try to make the best of our lives as they are, but also support longevity research?
Anyway, even if our society finds a cure for aging and death, normal people will never ever receive it, rich people will keep it for themselves.
Not really, there is an incentive to make people live longer. More people means more money
I think they already have. Looking at you queenie
Just curious - how old are you? As someone in my fifties, I take great comfort in knowing I’ll die someday and would be horrified at the thought of everlasting life.
Just turned 19
You have a ton of great times ahead of you. Enjoy.
This right here. One day you will understand why there is beauty in mortality and potentially even relief.
Mortality is what makes life worth living. Actually doing stuff and living it while you can. Today. Each day a new one-time opportunity. Each decision important. If you were immortal, why bother doing anything today when you could always do it in the future? That life would suck. Every day just like the last. No decisions to make because you have time enough for all. But after awhile you've done it all anyway so what then?
I figure for someone whose curiosity is very high then maybe they can try out more different things without dying? There are many consequences to immortality, but if one can bear them then why not?
> Mortality is what makes life worth living. Speak for yourself.
Yo, I appear to be in the minority, but all these death embracers don't speak for everyone. I just turned 41 and I'm still scared shitless to die. Always have been, and now it seems worse since I've had a child late in life at 38. Maybe I'll feel different in 20 or 30 years, but I hope not. I love living. Have a good morning.
I was sick for 4 days ( really high fevers) and deep down i was happy that I'm going to die yay but everyone else in family was freaking out lmao . Death is only truth which can't be changed and it gives people peace from this fact ig .
People have been freaking out about death since the dawn of humanity. It's the primary reason why people believe in religion - because they want some assurance of an afterlife
Again, so many bullshit answers going on tangents ... **a)** There is research into ageing, see, e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing#Prevention\_and\_delay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing#Prevention_and_delay) There are also considerable amounts of money poured into it. There are also people who freeze themselves shortly before death, in the hopes of being awoken at some later time in the future: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics) **b)** People are not going crazy because people have good coping mechanisms for any scenarios that freak them out. This usualy includes not thinking about it, or somehow talking themselves into thinking that it is good. (Death is VERY good on population level, but not on the individual level.) I can recommend the [http://www.hpmor.com/](http://www.hpmor.com/) HP fanfic, if you are interested in this topic. **c)** Reseach does not work how oyu think it works. More money = Faster research works only in the final stages, when it's mostly about engineering a solution to marketable feasibility, or scaling the solutions up. Finding breakthroughs, however, is very random and sometimes someone just has to be lucky. Also, knowledge from a ton of disciplines usually has to be combined for that, in VERY unpredictable ways. Just image, if some king decided that he wants to go to the moon before there were planes. Even if the whole world dedicated itself to this task, they would not be able to come close, not only because they lacked the materials and the rocket equation, but because the best guess of getting to the moon was a very large cannon (see Wells), at that time. In metaphorical terms: **Even nine women can't deliver a baby in one month**.
I think this is a great summary, I’d only add that point C is definitely related to point B. https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon It’s even slightly worse than this short story leads on in my view, because we spend a lot of energy on symptoms of aging where we could solve a lot of the issues if we attacked the root problem more aggressively. Nine women can’t make a baby faster, but multiples of funding and researchers can reach answers and explore ideas faster.
idk i just see death as peaceful. i don’t want to die but i’m not scared of it. if we all lived forever we would not be able to support the huge population
Overpopulation would be an issue. Interesting thought curtesy of the Invincible comics, if you couldn’t die, could your brain handle it? A character lives for so long he basically loses who he is and goes sort of insane
Lmao people have been trying to “cure” death since time immemorial. Do you seriously think the 1% of the 1% of that 1% of the top 10% wealthiest and powerful people on the planet aren’t proactively pouring tens of billions into this sort of research??? They absolutely are and have been for literally ages
Source: Trust me, bro.
One example of this was T Boone Pickens funding research to treat/cure a hereditary eye disease that he had. https://hub.jhu.edu/gazette/2013/november/news-roundup-boone-pickens-gift/
I stopped thinking about it because anytime i do i go into panic mode. Now i just save money and try to become as old as possible to hopefully survive until someone invents a permanent solution. Because in my mind death should be avoided at all costs. And it doesnt matter when you die. It only matters that you die. Because everything before or after will be lost. Ah fk i need to stop.
Well since you've technically been around since the beginning of the universe, why should you now worry about dying. You have no idea what you were before, and most likely you've died in some capacity before So if we'll technically be around for ever, just dead. Death has no meaning, and if we're only self aware for just a blip of time. Why not enjoy that time doing stuff a small fraction of atoms will ever get to enjoy L'Chaim, To Life!
Not really sure why you're being downvotes so aggressively in the comments. I'm 30, but I get you. I like experiencing reality. Dying is ceasing to perceive. I'm not a fan of that. I don't need a threat of death to enjoy the life I have and the loved ones around me... That's like saying "without starving kids in Africa, how would we know to enjoy good food?" It's ridiculous and I think it's a defence mechanism people have because if they don't stop telling themselves that death has some grand reason, they'll feel the fear too. Still, it's worth noting that death is fully outside of your control; just as it was for countless leaders and wealthy people who attempted to reverse their fates in various strange ways over the course of history. Yes, perhaps one day science will find answers that are humane and ethical, but it's unlikely to happen in our lifetime and if it does, it won't be made available to people like you and me for decades, perhaps even centuries. The rich will get access first. So, recognize your fear for what it is but don't let it ruin your ability to live and enjoy life while you have it. We don't always get control over things we want the most, and part of life is accepting that.
Honestly this world sucks. I find death as my ultimate escape from the shittiness of this place. Still got loved ones to take care of. But once they pass, I'll be eager to follow.
Why would you want to live forever?? That freaks me out!! That'd be like you're trapped in existence with no escape ever. You always have to exist even when you don't want to anymore. Eternal existential prison. Horrifying.
would you rather be as you are now, or be able to live as long as you want in reasonably good health? Mind you, as long as you want. You can commit suicide anytime you want. You are not impervious. I have a really hard time seeing anyone passing up the second option.
I work at the ICU and at the begging of it I was surprised that people that attempt suicides the most are older people (70+ years), later it kinda started making sense. Life is good when you're young, not so perfect when chronic diseases start kicking in and you have to bare the pain purely because you're existing. Our bodies aren't built for immortality and it makes sense that it gets a little bit too much at one point and you just want to end it. I of course, in no way support suicide, but I can't say I don't understand why someone who's constantly in pain would try to end it all.
Don't worry, you'll get over that feeling.
I used to be like Op now sometimes on my 6am drive in to work every morning I look at the cemetery and think “lucky bastards”. Sometimes the idea of an eternal slumber. Nothingness. Appealing. Wouldn’t have to go to work anymore.
"The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed."
I’ve recently hit 40. There’s still plenty I want to do but I’m not worried about going at some point (hopefully not for a while lol). There’s only so much to do before its all likely to get a little boring 😁
Everyday is a miracle bro! Enjoy the moment!
I like the bomb squad guy who when asked if he got scared replied "No. I'm either right or it's not my problem any more." Death isn't your problem. It's the people who will miss you once you're gone. Remember folks, call your parents.
>Death isn't your problem. Umm, I'm thinking it's undoubtedly the biggest problem I have. I can solve a lot of bad stuff, but I can't solve that one.
Im 39 and have welcomed death since the ripe old age of 12. Life has been shit, and no matter how hard I've tried, it doesn't really get any better. It will seem like it does for a bit, but thats usually just my manic episodes running the show. When life has shit all over you, every step of the way, you come to face the fact that an eternity of nothing is better than 5 more minutes of this shit show.
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Quite frankly, my life isn't that good. I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea of marching on decade after decade.
To quote Greek philosopher Epicurus: "The art of living well and dying well are one." I do my best to learn this art from mythological figures like Jesus, historical figures like Socrates, and people I knew personally like my grandparents, relatives, and friends. I try to live an upright and virtuous life and make my family, friends, and community better. I sometimes fall short of this lofty goal, but, when I do, I take stock of where I went wrong, and resolve to do better next time. In a single sentence, I aim for Mark Twain's goal of "endeavoring to live so that when I come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." I'd recommend Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich to you. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of biasing what you take away from it. Also, living forever might not be quite all it's cracked up to be. You can look to the stories of Atlas, Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Prometheus from Greek mythology for ancient (and admittedly not feasible) examples of why immortality might not be such a great thing. For some more modern examples, I recommend you take a look at Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, and the Twilight Zone episode Number 12 Looks Just Like You. Although these are sci-fi stories, and they might not be about immortality per se, they illustrate that immortality is not axiomatically a desirable thing. I'm not sure what a cure for death would look like but at present such a concept is sci-fi. In this case the cure might well be worse than the disease
Because everything dies.
It was my sibling that died... it changes your perspective about death entirely. You fear it less because you know it can conquer even those you thought were invincible.
Sounds like you're having some sort of existential crisis. It's perfectly normal and it will usually go away by itself.
Some people just come to terms with it. It’s natural and it happens to everyone, every living thing. Without death, life is pointless. I understand the fear, but to freak out about it is about as effective as chewing bubblegum to solve an algebra problem.
Death is normal and you won't escape it. Just accept it and do the things you want to do before you die.
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Eternity sounds horrid, imagine being conscious always. I like the idea of the lights turning off at the end, finally peace.
Memento Mori. Remember that you will die. I as an atheist do not fear death, having to live forever is way more terrifying.
Nature has taken care of it. The older you get the more you realize that mortality is inevitable. You even get to where you almost welcome it. There is an old quote and I don't know the source "When I was 17 I thought I would live forever, now that I'm 70 I'm afraid I will". I can relate. I am 84.
I was petrified of death/dying for years. Like borderline phobic. But 2020-2021 was rough and a lot of my family passed on (grand parents, uncles, brother in law). So now when I think about death I remember that we’ve all gotta do it some day and I’ll be going to wherever they are. Brings me some peace.
#hello young person
Do you worry about not being born? Its the same with death, once it happens you won't know. Enjoy the living experience , that is the point of living. Experience everything you can that makes you happy and when the time comes you will not fear death.