If you could push a button and simply cease to exist, would you press it?

Getting to keep the memories of adulthood is cheating imo.

I would love to write a letter to my 11 year old self with a list of books to read

Don't mention Jimmy or we'll all get arrested.

I would love to write a letter to my 11 year old self with a list of books to read

― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, October 12, 2012 2:56 PM (7 minutes ago)

i've daydreamed about this fairly often

Getting to keep the memories of adulthood is cheating imo.

― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, October 12, 2012 9:55 AM (8 minutes ago)

That's the only thing that makes it appealing for me though. I certainly wouldn't go through the decade from 11-20 again without knowing what to avoid and who to warn.

my parents; my brothers

exactly!

to me the part of this that's interesting is the "no consequence to others" - that's magical thinking in a way that the magic button isn't, because the button just doesn't exist but you can imagine how it works. but this added "nobody suffers" benefit could not really exist logically. so it becomes a "would you painlessly kill yourself if it doesn't bum anybody out" question. I think about suicide a lot, but I think the pain it inflicts on people is some bullshit, so I bust ass to keep my head above water at all times on that q. if there were a button that said "nobody even feels bad and the you-who-is-presently-suffering goes away" then yeah there would have been no more me as of, like, last week.

do-overs with or without your added knowledge are fraught with fuckin peril tho. You know some good stuff you might do but unforeseen consequence could take all the sweetness right outta that super-quick.

i was imagining this like a "it's a wonderful life" scenario where you just never existed

well that makes it real different though - rightly or not, I'm proud of some things I've accomplished, plus I'm a dad, if I never exist at all then I deny existence to a swell little guy who likes to play and yell and make funny faces - the original q posits no ill consequences to others

A large part of my current happiness is looking back at what a strange messed-up kid I was and how OK I turned out regardless

yeesh

a large part of my current happiness is my car </mygodiamshallow>

Also, going back to age 11 with all current knowledge means you have to hang out with teenagers for eight fucking years, no thank you.

plus you'd be one of those terrible teenagers who believes they're an 'old soul,' which would be insufferable even if technically correct in that case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgEfYGzojcA

Our parents and teachers would recognize our sudden precocity and bump us ahead to college. Then we'd spend the rest of adolescence inexplicably failing to develop any further, plummet into depression, finally request the button-man to undo the do-over.

^ thought that has occurred to me manys the time when musing on the 'back to my teenage body' thing

It's interesting, the liminality that these conversations create, to both exist and not-exist, to be an adult and also a child, to eat an oyster and also a pizza

lj??

I'm afraid of not existing. OP doesn't strike me as narcissistic...seems kind of enviable to be able to think about something so huge as not existing and being of no consequence to others and just hit the button and be gone. Because that's not something you do on the spur of the moment when you've stubbed your toe on the kitchen table for the 20th time. That's a thought you've been staring down for a long time and hitting that button would be pretty, well I dunno if brave is the right word but that's how it seems to me.

Sometimes I wonder if my fear of not existing is a denial of a deep dark wish that I didn't exist. And now I have a headache.

(Also this thread delivered everything I thought it would, and in record time. You guys are getting GOOD at this, lol)

i dont think there's anything brave at all about hitting the button

thinking out loud, is all

Don't care if it's brave, I'm hitting that button. Give it to me.

sometimes existence seems like a useless burden but other times i probably foolishly believe i have something like a "purpose" so voted no

lj??

― Randy Carol (darraghmac), Friday, 12 October 2012 15:43 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if he meant the oyster to be on the pizza I'm sure he'd have said

Yeah, bravery and cowardice are kinda nonsensical concepts wrt this scenario. Inasmuch as it seems like a decision that's pointedly uninformed by ego (to the extent that we're positing that you'd just be forgotten, or that the cessation of your existence would at least not cause any pain).

FWIW, I'm totally looking forward to the day when this scenario no longer seems at all appealing.

jesus what a depressing thread

Surprise?

The last time I felt like this I was drunk and maudlin and "oh what's the use, what is the fucking point?" I think at one point I said out loud "I wish I was a hovercraft" or something equally ridiculous. It was a very strange thing to feel and say - I don't know why it came over me that point cos I def don't feel this way 99.999% of the time, even if I'm feeling really low and everything's going to pot.

if only the Duchess of York had been around at the time, you could have starred in a delightful children's book by now

haha

"I wish I was a hovercraft" lol

I guess i can't comment on this thread because although I've often contemplated the possibility of erasing my existence without harming anyone else, it was always in the context of suicidal thoughts or just depression or whatever.

also - "Pretend it would involve no physical pain to yourself, and no emotional or financial or other repercussions to the people around you. - these are all things directly related to suicide. the question is basically like "pretend you could commit suicide the repercussions of suicide. however, don't mention suicide."

guess i'm being small-minded about this, sorry.

(i too am in favor of letting threads develop organically. lord knows i've started plenty of threads with absurd questions that were luckily saved by other people bending the conversation in a direction that was more interesting for them)

ugh, as usual i left out important words and i suck. that should have been "pretend you could commit suicide WITHOUT the repercussions of suicide. however, don't mention suicide."

guys, every fucking day is a gift and it's insane to me that any of you think nothing is preferable to EVERYTHING
and now i'm going to take a shower and go to a museum and then go to a cocktail tasting and then see an ilxor and a bunch of other guys perform live music and then go see a woman i'm dating DJ at another museum (not the first museum) and then we're going to go out and have a nice meal and then go home and have sex and sleep and then I'll get up and throw some pottery and then watch the thursday NFL game on tivo that I couldn't watch because I was out at a job interview where i was promised more work and then went to my OTHER pottery class and then went to a big society event food and wine tasting with a gal DJ (not the first gal DJ) and after I'm done with the NFL game while I do some work I'll go to see a maestro of indian tabla and likely have to break up with a woman i love dearly but that i just don't see working out and then I'll go see a series of short films about the Spanish labor movement and then go to the Ukrainian House and eat pickles and watch more music and then i'm going to KEEP FUCKING DOING THIS UNTIL I DIE and rushing that moment is completely beyond my comprehension and although much of life is very sad a great deal more of it is too sweet to even express

i should note that i am also fat and hate myself but hey, can't have everything

and then I'll get up and throw some pottery

is this a euphemism

I'll go see a series of short films about the Spanish labor movement

what films?

good post forks. feel like this concept is particularly appealing to british ppl for some reason?

also forks otm life feels great + the good is way better than any bad, tho i understand not everyone might feel that way

if there was a button the british could push that would instantly undo literally centuries of brutal horrific worldwide bloodsoaked imperialism and colonialism would they push it?

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/16463

super cool. plz tell how it is

also: forks throws pottery (and maybe you do too?)

Let's say you have a son or daughter who is five. If you press the button, do they also cease to exist? Or were they born of immaculate conception?

Eventually we all will be forgotten to time, why be hasty about it.

guys, every fucking day is a gift and it's insane to me that any of you think nothing is preferable to EVERYTHING so I'm just going to detail how awesome my life is and completely ignore that my experience of life is nothing like other people's, go me

emil.y otm, congratulations forks on your great life

awesome? sounds like way too much hard work to me.

yup