FeenixxRising

I've never thought much about death, nor am I afraid of death. Of course, I hope I live a long, healthy and happy life, but the fact is everyone dies, and I will eventually die. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing I can do about that fact. So what is the point of worrying about it? I've never been able to understand why anyone would worry about this eventuality; however, I do understand that many people do view death as something to dread. I'm sure it has to do with the fear of the unknown.

OTH, I do sometimes fear I haven't done enough to leave something positive behind once I'm gone.

Firefall

Nope, not afraid, for me I believe it is a transition like a caterpillar to a butterfly... A few close brushes with death, I was not afraid, so what I believe to be true is true for me.

EndGameNYC

Our mortality can push us to greatness or send us cowering in its long shadow. Or leave us sitting on the sidelines. I’m aligned with the existentialist philosophers who argue that we’re responsible for creating our own meaning, our own purpose in life, regardless of our objective limitations. We live in an indifferent universe of objects that are alien to human being, without consciousness and therefore without a sense of dread or longing, that cares not whether we make the decision to live or to die.

In order to create our own meaning, we must make the leap to live authentically; to be who we are rather than who we wish to be or who we think we are. To quote Albert Camus, "Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is." When we bend to the projected expectations of other people, do just enough to "get by," drop out (which is no decision at all) or bury ourselves in our addictions, we are living a false life; we are at life’s mercy. The coffin that becomes our immortal wardrobe, plain or ornate, signals relief rather than celebration.

Clearly, active alcoholism does not provide fertile ground for a meaningful life. But it isn’t only those of us who are addicted who recoil at the inner demand to be authentic. We only accelerate the process of avoiding life and marching towards the last tick of the clock, with alcohol serving as an efficient delivery system. Addiction or not, instead of being, many people choose to play a role that offers the illusion of safety...the good wife, the responsible husband and father, the reliable employee, the sought-after celebrity, the successful professional. That nagging feeling of incompleteness is our very being rebelling at our assumed selfhood.

To me, how we engage death tells us a lot about how we engage life. But much worse than death is a life unlived. To quote another existentialist philosopher, Steve Jobs, "Don’t make the mistake of living someone else’s life."

LBrain

Can I take that as a "NO" endgame?

EndGameNYC

Love it!

What was the question?

drunkenunicorn

ive always thought about death. I've been depressed all my life so some days i would wish i didn't wake up or hoped i get kidnapped and raped or something. when i began to drink heavily i no longer cared how i died. heck I'm not afraid of death at all it's just most times i would sit and wonder when and how because I'm ready. I'm on medication now and i still think of dying. i don't care about anything anymore. i want to live but i have no motivation or inspiration to live. i hope being on this site helps me.

Aellyce

If you are still drinking, the most important first step is to give that up. Things would probably change quite a bit just by having the chemical depressant out of your system permanently. I've seen your other post earlier today... that's a very dark place to be indeed. Not my own experience, but you can read similar "bottom" stories from people on this board. I truly believe that the only way to start changing it is to be done with booze.

Other than that, or after that, the message some of us were trying to convey on this thread is that motivation and inspiration does not just float free for us out there so that we can catch it. A healthy mind naturally has a source of it, but for lasting effects, we need to create and cultivate it ourselves in complex ways.

MrTumble

i worry about death and loads of things that I cant control... drives me bonkers.

Tamerua

I don't know if this is the same, but I feel like it could be... When I was drinking, I thought that life sucked and like you, it was pointless. Now that I'm sober and I've worked on myself, I actually like life and look forward to things, even the mundane.... I sometimes feel like I've wasted a lot of time when I could have been happy all along.

I just remember that I can't change what was but I can be happy about what is to come. I don't believe in an after life either, so what's here is it.. I need to make sure that I make the best of it.

dbillyd

It's weird. Now I'm sober I realise that there's loads of things I want to do and there's never going to be enough time to do them - so many places to visit, experiences to have, books to read, songs to learn, sports to play etc. etc.

When I was drinking I didn't think about these things - it was just about the next drink.

Stoogy

I agree with Dee completely, I think initially we fear the damage we have done coming back to bite us like Karma I suppose, but then again I come from a family of hypochondriacs so it's in my makeup to worry I think although I think worrying about health causes health issues too.

MarathonMan

I'm not scared of death (I don't think).....I am scared to leave behind the people I love....I worry how my wife would cope without me and if I've done enough to take care of her future. I worry my parents would never get over it if I passed. I worry my dad would start to drink again over it. I think any fear of death I might have is more the fear or what amount of pain would be caused to those people I left behind rather than a worry over my actual dying.

Soberpotamus

Why not pick your tops in the categories and do them?

tim68

The only time I feared death was the next day when severely hung over. Its that overwhelming fear of what the alcohol was doing to my organs and how I so did not want to die a miserable alcoholic death from liver or some other organ failure.

Stop drinking for good, eat healthy and put your past behind you. It's a good start. Concentrate on living.

tornrealization

I've feared death and it has crippled me sometimes. Drinking definitely kept the thoughts at bay despite knowing the drinking was bringing me closer to the death experience.

I struggle with this still. I try to calm the thoughts down and just enjoy the now. I'm not into a higher power or afterlife but we're here and that is some pretty mighty stuff to contemplate even if you accept the scientific big boom theory.

Where did those first particles come from to cause a boom to begin with?

I can't imagine a nothingness - not even black space or white sky, that's stuff, colors, concepts of colors and space.

So I try to calm the thoughts down by keeping busy. Appreciate the things. We didn't get a choice in being born, we're not given a choice about whether or not we are going to die either. We do get all sorts of choices in between. SO worrying about it is - there a place for it if it opens up someone's eyes to appreciating things more (like me), but other than that, you can't prevent it, so learn to accept it and enjoy (live) your time.

Mirage74

I've thought about death. What happens? Does it hurt? Is there an afterlife? Is there nothing?Can I even comprehend nothing?

I've feared death, but it was usually in times of dispair after bouts of drinking. When I start to sober up I find I don't worry too much about it. I think my biggest fear is suffering. I want to avoid an alcoholic death.

MythOfSisyphus

I liken the brain (mine at least) to my computer. Sitting here it's just plastic, silicon and metal, inert. When you push the button to turn it on it begins going through the boot menu; initially it's just running some primitive version of DOS. It has very limited functions and doesn't really do anything. Then after a few seconds, Windows 7 boots up an voila! all the stuff I normally use is there.

In the same way, if something wakes me in the night I'm only partially functional- the OS is going through my mental boot order, getting the higher cognitive functions "online". I think the Monkey Part is the basic machine code/DOS for my brain. It's the primitive part that processes the basic emotions, detects danger and keeps the body going.

Occasionally I'll wake up with this feeling of...not dread, really...just a stark awareness of death and mortality. There's a short sharp icy dagger of fear in the Monkey part when it processes that I won't exist sometime. But in short order all the higher parts of the "mental OS" snap into place. Maybe it's the mind putting on it's armor, and all the logical stuff activates. I realize that my body is the same dead as it is alive, when I die I'll just be whatever I was before I was born to begin with, etc etc. Defense mechanisms? Rationalizations? I honestly don't know.

The Monkey part of me, the biological part that runs in the background and makes sure I breath and otherwise continue to stay alive- that part is afraid of death and mortality. The higher part, not so much. I certainly don't want to die and I'd prefer to live as long as I can, but I'm not really all that afraid of death. I expect death to be, as PainterW says, a dreamless sleep. It's not being dead that's scary, it's the actual dying part!

Sometimes I don't know whether to be grateful or angry. Somehow I woke from my alcoholic fog being being 45 and not having a lot to show for it. Am I angry that I didn't do more? Or am I grateful that I woke up at all? I don't always know.

My dad died threes year ago from the last day of June. Spring and summer signals the beginning of new life but it reminds me of him being gone. So yeah, I think of death quite a bit. Not in the sense of dwelling on it but as a mystery, a frontier we all must explore.

Not sure if I really answered the question or not!

desypete

yes your so right mountainbob
people do cry out when there dying my son was no different. just a shame that an all loving god doesn't have the power to save kids like that who cry out that they dont want to die etc,
maybe the all powerful god only has the power to remove compulsions for drink ? who knows ?
i know i dont, maybe you know more than me, maybe you have real experience of dying and coming back or what its like on the other side ? or is it just books that give you this insight ? if so then you know as much about dying as me

Aellyce

In some weird ways, this thread reminds me of one of my favorite authors... Susan Sontag. She is a woman (deceased now) that I really relate to like crazy, I read ~everything published by her and I just feel this profound similarity all over.

This is a series of videos of an interview with her. I sent this to many people before, when I wanted to show them "myself", because it's so close in my opinion.
Many interesting things, but she shares her thoughts about death, or more precisely, about moving towards the "end" using TS Eliot's writings. When I first saw these videos, I was kind of shocked at the similarities between her thoughts and opinions and mine... much like she expresses it in the end of part 4 about TS Eliot.

Entrevista a Susan Sontag a Barcelona (1ª part) - YouTube

littlesister1

Like Woody Allen says

"I don't fear death, I just don't want to be there when it happens"