Fear of death.

Is this the case? With an exponentially increasing population, it's just possible that the numbers of people alive RIGHT NOW are more than half of all the people who have ever lived.

Although it's rather unlikely.

It's the thought of having my life cut short that seems so appalling and unfair. Also the fact that it would probably be horribly painful and frightening in the last moments. I often read about people who die in horrible ways and it just seems so awful to go out like that - in a panic of uncomprehending fear, with the survival instinct pointlessly flooding me with adrenaline, perhaps with images of loved ones I'll never see again flashing through my brain. I guess that is a grim thought.

As far as I'm aware, "trying to get away from worldly sensations" is pretty much the opposite of what meditation aims to do.

way to dismiss something out of hand.

Shakey, I really like the concept that we go back to whence we came. It has a calming effect without having to resort to the supernatural (which I'm inept at dealing with).

x-posts

way to dismiss something out of hand.

I've talked to people who've done it, and it really doesn't sound like something I could psyche myself into, no offense.

Personally, I too find it hard to get into meditation, simply b/c I'm somewhat hyperactive and find that in my free time I want to expend energy rather than calm myself down. But that's just my inclination, not necessarily reflective of my opinion on meditation or indicative of how beneficial it might be for me (it might be just what the doctor ordered, you know?).

If that makes sense. I probably should shut up now.

And I've no idea where the shark comes into it.

As for our milages varying...yep, perhaps. I don't know exactly how I came to be unafraid, it wasn't a switch that flicked off, it was just a gradual thing I guess.

(by which I mean...the physical impossibility of [a concept] in [a mind]...well, what's that mean? do concepts ever physically exist in minds anyway? Does he even know what he's getting at?)

if you were certain that when you go to sleep tonight you would not wake up in the morning, you wouldn't feel any anxiety?

Yeah, I was thinking about this. I think maybe if and when I have children, or other dependents, it might get scary again. But that would be for completely different reasons to those I previously had for finding it scary.

if you were certain that when you go to sleep tonight you would not wake up in the morning, you wouldn't feel any anxiety?

Just a Supermarket Sweep style, got-to-fit-as-much-fun-into-the-next-24-hours-as-possible anxiety, I think. Apart from that I reckon I'd be ok.

"The Methuselah Mouse Prize is the premiere effort of The Methuselah Foundation™; a scientific competition designed to draw attention to the ability of new technologies to slow and even reverse the damage of the aging process, preserving health and wisdom in a world that sorely needs it."

I bet it was from Paul G. Allen. the mprize fund is now at 3 millions.

Let us disarm him of his novelty and strangeness, let us converse and be familiar with him, and have nothing so frequent in our thoughts as death. Upon all occasions represent him to our imagination in his every shape; at the stumbling of a horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least prick with a pin, let us presently consider, and say to ourselves, "Well, and what if it had been death itself?" and, thereupon, let us encourage and fortify ourselves. Let us evermore, amidst our jollity and feasting, set the remembrance of our frail condition before our eyes, never suffering ourselves to be so far transported with our delights, but that we have some intervals of reflecting upon, and considering how many several ways this jollity of ours tends to death, and with how many dangers it threatens it.

Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die, has unlearned to serve. There is nothing of evil in life, for him who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: to know how to die, delivers us from all subjection and constraint.

Avoidance = the wellspring of anxiety and depression.

Someone hooked up!

i'm not sure. in a way it's incredibly comforting. "it is possible to die"

The thing that bothers me the most is that my family will have to go through all my stuff once I'm gone. It ain't gonna be pretty.

God, I need to straighten this place up big time.

You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools. But that's the way I like it baby, I don't wanna live for ever.

Lemmy said in an interview that he wanted to die "the year before forever, so as to avoid the rush"

Dread, not fear.

The thing that bothers me the most is that my family will have to go through all my stuff once I'm gone. It ain't gonna be pretty.

God, I need to straighten this place up big time.

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Sunday, November 30, 2008 9:46 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

:(

well, i'm jus gonna be chillin with jesus, sounds pretty good to me.

I don't fear death so much as the bafflement that I have no way to ever know what comes after it. I don't think this fear is entirely irrational.

I mean, I fear death and find it shocking and grim and unknowable, and more more moreso with the question of an afterlife.

It's a good laxative.

Also good perspective for when something non-lethal is befalling you. "Least I'm not fucking dying".

Other than that I'm not a fan.

i get by thru a little avoidance, a little forgetting, and a little getting better at recognizing the moods and moments that will trigger the big waves of fear that (used to) swallow me so fast and whole that i wanted to jump out of bed and run round the house and into the street and keep running until i passed out.

^^^ thanks to NV for writing this, especially the bit about 'moods and moments'. I really only get fear of death when I'm tired and/or stressed out over something that I can't do anything about. All the thousands of ways I can't do what I want - that are nebulous and myriad and impossible to consciously keep track of much less do anything about - get solidified into a fear of death, which is at least something concrete and can be reacted to (even if the reaction is fear).