A question that troubles me...

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My NT friend was trying to cheer me up about coming to terms with beingAS:
" It's not like you can Die from AUtism!"
It was my turn (FINALLY) to give someone else the "Look".

I think I have come to terms with my own fear of death by thinking about it this way :

We never know we are dead (unless we exist in some form after death) but to be conscious of ourselves, we must be alive. Therefore we can only know what it is to be alive, then we cease to be aware.

It has always freaked me out, and still does, the fact that people/animals can be here one day, you can be talking to them, maybe known them for many years, and then they are gone. A relationship, a friendship, has just...stopped. I suppose that is what they call existential angst, it seems so illogical, death. I could really do with some kind of faith in an afterlife, but so far I haven't found one.

If there was no death, life would have no meaning sunny. No importance.

Iremember asking my mom as a child if animals get to go to Heaven. She said no and I decided I didn't want to go either.

Well, simply put, life wouldnt be worth much if it wasnt for death. And I worry about dying, and people I care about dying, everyday. I find it very hard to accept that everything Ive experienced, and felt, will dry up to nothing.

“If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.” CS Lewis

I don't quite understand why death gives life meaning. I don't disagree I'm just not sure what that means. Could someone explain ?

I don't know if we can make this kind of statement, really. We don't know what it's like to be immortal. Life would certainly be different, but we can't imagine it. It would obviously come with a different set of rules.

I can't believe your dreams (I don't have any dreams I recall - lol) are just a result of chemical reactions and electrical impulses inside a lump of protoplasm called the brain.

Death seems very logical to me. There is only death because there is life. All death is certain, only the timing is uncertain. I believe there is some continuation of your "soul" or "spirit", otherwise there is no good or evil and life has no more meaning to us than to a cockroach.

As a kid, I used to be scared of jet aircraft at night (I was aware of Victoria being a part of the Omega navigation system and a nuclear target in the cold war). But I decided that it was beyong my control and if death came sooner rather than later, its no big deal. My life was already better than most of the world's population and I was privileged to have lived well for even just a few years.

Don't fear the reaper, dude

The Wicket Gate

I drifted one night to the wicket gate
My guardian angel and me,
And enshrouded inside, full of heavenly grace
The beasts of the Earth welcomed me.
With eyes of love, and noble stance
They resided on infinite lea.
Their pitiful slaughter erased from their eyes
Just forgiveness for all to see.
For the butcher below holds the knife for us all,
Does that make us conscience free?
I often visit the wicket gate.
As I drift into heavenly sleep.
But those soulful eyes of the noble beast
Haunt my life, as they live in God's keep.

Madelaine Butler

If we could never die, not only is it feasible to envision extreme boredom, but life would lose all significance and worth. There would be no threat to it ever leaving us; life would be permanent, consistent and eternal, so we would grant it little value. As life is endangered, rare and limited, we treasure it.

Does anyone really believe that
they can die, without taking existence
with them?

Interesting you can ask that, Calandale!

I have wondered, now that I know my issue is neurological, if I were not in THIS body, my existence would have been different. So I am thinking that WITHOUT a body, my existence would be entirely different, indeed.

it is consciousness of existence, anyway, not just the existence?

Do we? Most people take life for granted, not having a daily conscious awareness that it will end unless having a near death experience or finding out one has a terminal illness. We go about our lives assuming there'll always be tomorrow. What would be differnet?

Just as many big city folk take cultural opportunities for granted, never actually participating in them.

We are aware, we're just not consciously thinking about it all the time - or else we'd become concerned or depressed about our mortality. It's easy to see why people forget though - this world is so fast paced and you have to keep moving.

I was trying to say that we tend to value limited things more than unlimited, because of their transient nature. Life is a given, and people tend to be distracted by all the pretty things that lie within it. Death is so far off in my mind that I don't even care about it. However, if I was to get a time frame on my death, then I suddenly would.

Sorry, I missed this reply while I was away. I don't think I made my point very clearly. It is the extinguishing of consciousness that I find illogical, the discontinuity.



No, I don't believe that either. I think there is more of a mystery to them than that which dream analysis doesn't detract from. Dream symbolism and archetypal psychology are a way of trying to understand the mystery, if I may put it that way, and it always leaves me with a feeling of awe for the unconscious and the way it expresses itself.

I see death as going to sleep forever.

If your going to die of a bomb, AIDS, get run over by a car, or get murdered, let it happen.

Everybody has to die at some point.

Cheating death is the last thing you want.