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At least your regrets are related to your enjoyment of life coming to an end. It could be a lot worse, plenty of people are fearing their doom while not especially enjoying life.
As Woody Allen noted..."Life is horrible, and it is over much too quickly."
OP, I know what you mean. The happiest person I ever met was a young man with Down's Syndrome who worked in a restaurant doing menial jobs. (maybe his family owned it? not sure)
Anyway, he had no clue about responsibility, or war, or bills, or how his life will eventually end... he just didn't have the capacity to work that out in his head. His life was just a series of happy moments strung together and he was always "in the moment." Everybody would say hi to him and he was very sociable, believing he was the most popular, loved person in the world. In his small world, he was. He lived in a bubble.
Nice kid, but I would never want to trade places with him. Once you know something, you never want to live ignorantly again.
Maybe the trick is to simply live "in the moment" and not think too hard about tomorrow. Be present when talking to loved ones. Turn off all forms of media... even this board.
I certainly understand what you're saying Thinking-man, and believe it is one of the strongest draws of theism....the supposed comfort of death not being an end.
However, you have the advantage of knowing that it's not so and therefore should realize that since your time is finite, not one minute more should be wasted on such fruitless thoughts nor will you be wasting time in trying to be sure you're securing your entry to 'heaven' nor will you be suffering the anguish that you and others you care about might not make it.
yeah...i try not to think about it much and focus on the positives.....but it's hard sometimes.
Or course it is but consider the alternatives such as it NEVER ending. Ever. It will just go on and on forever without end or reprieve. I think the concept of eternal life cheapens the value of actual life into nothing. The idea of living forever is terrifying even BEFORE you add in the god stuff.
Christopher Hitchens put it well. He described life as an atheist as being like going to a really good party and harboring some regrets that you soon have to leave. Life under certain brands of theism however is like being tapped on your shoulder at that party and being told that you can NEVER leave and whats more the host INSISTS you have a good time.
Further in every ejaculation, including the one that made you, there are billions of lives that never got the chance to live at all. Let alone to live the life that you seem to love enough to be depressed at the thought of losing some day.
I'm finding it hard for others, namely non-atheists, to relate to this....and that in itself makes me more depressed...just a tad.
I look at my new borns, and can't stop thinking about 'the circle of life' and how depressing it really can be. I mean, i'm young and try to enjoy life to the fullest and live a generally happy life....but when i think about 'life.....as a whole.......', i get down.......and to top it off, i feel like not many people 'get' what i mean when i say that.
It makes me sad that all of this will come to an end sooner or later....and that all the good times will end. all the laughter, all the small things i enjoy so much, my love for my family and life in general, is. going. to. end.
yeah...i try not to think about it much and focus on the positives.....but it's hard sometimes.
i feel like the delusional deists, with their 'warm, fuzzy, feel good' fairytale have it good in a sense. Their time (as they would think) isn't going to end like i described above.....and because of that delusional thinking, they might be able to live a happier life......although, as a wise man once said: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
Of course i won't be going back to believing in the BS, and i'm happy knowing that what i believe is backed by science and evidence, and the harsh reality i just described is just that....reality....and there's nothing i can do about it.
Does anyone 'get' me?
That is quite simply reality. Reality is best faced.
I have three children and like most parents, I worry about them constantly. This is not a bad thing -- my worrying helps keep them safe. I worry because I know there are no assurances. I worry about their emotional well-being. I worried when they were young, crossing the street (I still do, but less so). This summer, the two oldest will get their drivers licenses, creating vast fertile territory for more parental worry. I worry about all sorts of afflictions and dangers and potential pitfalls of their lives.
And I would rather worry than not worry.
It spurs me to help make their precious, limited minutes fulfilling ones. It makes every moment shared with them all the sweeter, as I know there are only so many such moments in life.
I'll pass on the unlimited life, but I would like a much longer one. That's too bad, because I won't get one. What I will get is a shot at a fairly long life in a democratic country with excellent infrastructure. In both terms of where and when to be born, I won the lottery. I was born in the United States in 1969. It could have been Rwanda in 1980, the USSR in 1930, or all sorts of other places/times where life was miserable and short and bereft of opportunity.
All things considered, my children and I have it good. Very good. And I'll take that.
OP, I know what you mean. The happiest person I ever met was a young man with Down's Syndrome who worked in a restaurant doing menial jobs. (maybe his family owned it? not sure)
Anyway, he had no clue about responsibility, or war, or bills, or how his life will eventually end... he just didn't have the capacity to work that out in his head. His life was just a series of happy moments strung together and he was always "in the moment." Everybody would say hi to him and he was very sociable, believing he was the most popular, loved person in the world. In his small world, he was. He lived in a bubble.
Nice kid, but I would never want to trade places with him. Once you know something, you never want to live ignorantly again.
Maybe the trick is to simply live "in the moment" and not think too hard about tomorrow. Be present when talking to loved ones. Turn off all forms of media... even this board.
Thanks logline. I appreciate your post. i enjoyed reading it!
Death...... the thought and fear of it is enough to drive anyone crazy.
I think it's because most of us are distant from it and so it becomes something remote and less easier to accept. For me it's the opposite. I live near places associated with "end of life." Whenever I drive by these places I'm always reminded about the circle of life and about my own date with death as well as of those close to me.. whether it's seeing the crew preparing a grave site, closing the grave after a service, and other similar things. I see this kind of stuff frequently as I drive by. The impression it's had on me is that I've grown to be less fearful and depressed and more accepting of life and death.
Anyway, I think it's good to reflect on death. But after you are done with it, go out and enjoy life.
My wife actually works with a lot of elderly patients and death is a very common occurrence in her work. From what I gather, nature has a very neat trick when it comes to end-of-life psychology. A vast majority of the people at the end of their lives are very much at peace with it. The stress of death mostly occurs WAY before you are actually near death. I think fear of the unknown and stress over the demise of your being goes away as you get older and older. Maybe things like dementia/Alzheimer's are a blessing in a way. We become children again when we become very old... enjoying benign thoughts and being ignortantly bliss to the harsh realities of life.
That being the case, it makes no sense to stress about it now because you know you will not stress about it in the future. In fact, you'll think you wasted time with all that stressing.
Death...... the thought and fear of it is enough to drive anyone crazy.
I think it's because most of us are distant from it and so it becomes something remote and less easier to accept. For me it's the opposite. I live near places associated with "end of life." Whenever I drive by these places I'm always reminded about the circle of life and about my own date with death as well as of those close to me.. whether it's seeing the crew preparing a grave site, closing the grave after a service, and other similar things. I see this kind of stuff frequently as I drive by. The impression it's had on me is that I've grown to be less fearful and depressed and more accepting of life and death.
Anyway, I think it's good to reflect on death. But after you are done with it, go out and enjoy life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by logline
My wife actually works with a lot of elderly patients and death is a very common occurrence in her work. From what I gather, nature has a very neat trick when it comes to end-of-life psychology. A vast majority of the people at the end of their lives are very much at peace with it. The stress of death mostly occurs WAY before you are actually near death. I think fear of the unknown and stress over the demise of your being goes away as you get older and older. Maybe things like dementia/Alzheimer's are a blessing in a way. We become children again when we become very old... enjoying benign thoughts and being ignortantly bliss to the harsh realities of life.
That being the case, it makes no sense to stress about it now because you know you will not stress about it in the future. In fact, you'll think you wasted time with all that stressing.
very interesting. thanks for the thoughts!
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