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What is your take on all of this? How can I program my mind to keep away from these thoughts?
TL;DR I feel that no skill I build or anything I collect or anything I DO matters because I am going to die anyway. How do I stop thinking this way?
I have only been feeling this way for a month or so, and never before in my life. I am in my twenties, so young.
It depends upon your definition of "matters". If by "matters" you mean "prevents you from dying", you're right. If by "matters" you mean "makes the life you have longer and better quality, and improves the condition of the lives of others and those who will come after you", then you can do a lot that matters.
Know that you are going to leave this earth, and your legacy, to the people who come after you. What you do in your life that can make the lives of the humans who come after you is the most meaningful thing you can possibly do. So, no matter what, be peaceful, loving, and cooperative. Don't harm others, don't hate others, don't compete against others. You can do your part to make this world a better place, and if there is an afterlife, the greatest reward, whatever it is, will come to those who did precisely that.
You are grappling with the great unanswerable mystery that we all face. The fact that you are trying so hard to answer this question is very much a product of Western rationalism, which insists that we try to use dualistic thinking (this/that, us/them, then/now) to solve a problem that has no rational solution. You can't know why you were born and why you became aware, and you can't know what happens after you die. The rational mind is great at engineering things but it is a useless tool to help you with this dilemma.
But where do all of our experiences go upon death?
Does it matter? We all take our temporary place on this planet. What we do with that time is what matters. There were people before us, and there will be people after us. Think of our planet like one giant garden. We are responsible for keeping our space healthy for future generations. We can either be evil or we can be good. It depends on what you choose to feed. That gives us one big purpose for being here.
None of us had a choice on whether we wanted to be here or not. Some people resent being born and some are more then happy to be here. Some of us are only given a few years, and some one ten decades if they're lucky.
So if we have no choice on being here do we waste even a second of it, especially if we know it could be taken at any minute? I say so. Life is amazing. My bucket list is pretty big and I don't think I will have enough time to see it all. That makes me sad, especially when I think I may only have a couple of years left.
Go make your bucket list, and on what you can do to make way for a future generation. You shouldn't focus on life being meaningless when you have full control over what you do in this life. Why live in a constant state of emotional death? Go and live for a long long time. Focus on that bucket list instead. You have a purpose and responsibilities that matter.
Realize the the most basic things we can do as living thinking human beings is amazing. You are a piece of the universe that has become aware. You have the ability observe understand the world around around you. If you never accomplish anything, your life is already amazing. This is something I've been thinking about. Maybe somebody smarter than my can pick up this idea and say it better.
I don't know if this has anything to do with what I'm trying to say but watch this video. I think it's powerful
You make a great point! I have some thoughts on that too. Also that video is superbly relevant for this thread! I am so happy you posted that for him!
Tolle talks about something that is actually used quite a bit in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) which has subsequently been adapted for some interesting psychological training programs. The concept of mindfulness.
There is a lot of research around how the mind can either receive, or generate, various random "ideas"...this is also what a lot of the gurus in Eastern Religion have tried to teach people to be able to do:
1. Clear your mind completely. The goal of basic meditation
2. Fill your mind completely with one idea; the goal of visualization
3. Receive or observe what arises from consciousness when not attempting to either clear your mind or focus it. This is the goal of enlightenment (you can't be enlightened with nothing in your mind and you can't self-generate it either).
Much of the psychedelic research is also focused on #3. Trying to answer the question, what is the origin of what is encountered or experienced under the influence of psychedelics but not during regular states of consciousness? Is there some other reality that always exists but that we do not perceive, the way that we don't see the stars during the daytime? Scientists thought perhaps that consciousness may function a bit like a radio receiver; if you change the tuning, you get something different. The psychedelics research was one way of investigating some of these ideas. The government and the military were very interested in these investigations too.
Also these concepts of mindfulness and being present are old ones. Tolle wrote a book on it called The Power of Now, but back in the 70s, an important figure in the psychedelic research community, wrote one called Be Here Now, which is really focused on these same essential tasks for achieving mindfulness. His name was Richard Alpert but he took on the moniker of Baba Ram Dass as a spiritualist, after abandoning psychedelics as a method to understanding.
I'm not religious myself but have studied religions a little bit, and the phrase "Know ye not that ye are Gods?", seems to be a statement of this idea - that humans are divine beings. Not just because of our ability to contemplate the universe - the outside world, but also to contemplate the mind itself - the inner-verse, if you will.
It might sound like a lot of New Age pablum, but if you go back to physics, in quantum mechanics, there is an interesting concept that reality is not always the same depending on who you are or where you are or what you are doing. That the "reality" - the essence of what exists or is happening in the real world, is observer-dependent - it is created by the existence of the observer, and sometimes by the act of observing - these are interesting ideas that may support the idea of human divinity - because we can literally create a reality (one of many) by observing it.
More importantly we have the mental/intellectual abilities to discover these things. Which may not make us unique in the universe, but very likely makes us unique on our planet, and within our solar system.
So, going back to what the New Age neuroscientists were looking for - if we can direct our mental powers or channel whatever the source of random received messages and information is, then the possibility also exists that we can manipulate reality - it after all is only what we perceive and experience. If you do not perceive it or experience it, does it truly matter? That is the question - not "does it exist". Because in the metaphysical sense....the limits of existence are the limits of perception.
The other big metaphysical and religious question is, if as these beings that may have the capability to receive information from the universe, via our innerverse, we eventually gain the ability to perceive everything, but to also experience only what we wish to perceive or experience, then what would distinguish us from God?
Many people have argued that if we can do, even in a small way or on a small scale, something that a god could do, then we are also gods. Maybe fledgling ones, or puny ones, but still gods.
Just something I thought about after reading your comment about how life is already amazing!.
A few years ago, I got a phone call from a man I used to know. He said, "Do you know what today is?" I thought for a few seconds and said, "No, what?"
He said, "Forty years ago today, you saved my life and I just wanted to thank you." He had a mechanical failure on his classic motorcycle and hit the guard rail. He was not breathing when I arrived. Pretty messy. I cleared his airway and got a collar onto his neck because sometimes when they wake up they flail.
He has had a good life. He has changed jobs as the world has changed, but he has always been employed. His children are successful. I am happy for him. He is about 20 years younger than I am. My wife and I have had several saves like that, but this man was the only one who thanked me years after his close call. If you quietly reassure patients like this, they often simply relax and pass away. He remembers me yelling at him and getting him to fight this. Adrenaline is a good thing at this point and it is not taught much any more.
And, by what mechanism do you propose that this would occur? Do you have any rational basis for this statement or are you merely attempting to disguise wishful thinking as 'fact'?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GearHeadDave
...you can't know what happens after you die. The rational mind is great at engineering things but it is a useless tool to help you with this dilemma.
Not true, on both counts.
We know exactly what happens when one dies- the bioelectric function of the body shuts down, and shortly after death the circuits which provided the function of the body and brain begin to degrade. If function can be restored before [too much] degradation occurs, then some level of 'living' can be resumed, the level of 'normalcy' is dependent on the amount of degradation that has occurred.
If function cannot be restored within a fairly short period of time the degradation turns to decay. Residual energy dissipates in a manner similar to the dissipation of energy from a power supply after it is disconnected from the line current. Lacking any cohesive pathways or a field to contain them, the circuits and 'memories' that made you *you* are gone; with no structure, the energy fades as it dissipates randomly, never again to return to what it once was. It is simple physics and an intelligent, rational mind can understand it. It is irrational to presume any other occurrence.
You make a great point! I have some thoughts on that too. Also that video is superbly relevant for this thread! I am so happy you posted that for him!
Tolle talks about something that is actually used quite a bit in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) which has subsequently been adapted for some interesting psychological training programs. The concept of mindfulness.
There is a lot of research around how the mind can either receive, or generate, various random "ideas"...this is also what a lot of the gurus in Eastern Religion have tried to teach people to be able to do:
1. Clear your mind completely. The goal of basic meditation
2. Fill your mind completely with one idea; the goal of visualization
3. Receive or observe what arises from consciousness when not attempting to either clear your mind or focus it. This is the goal of enlightenment (you can't be enlightened with nothing in your mind and you can't self-generate it either).
Much of the psychedelic research is also focused on #3. Trying to answer the question, what is the origin of what is encountered or experienced under the influence of psychedelics but not during regular states of consciousness? Is there some other reality that always exists but that we do not perceive, the way that we don't see the stars during the daytime? Scientists thought perhaps that consciousness may function a bit like a radio receiver; if you change the tuning, you get something different. The psychedelics research was one way of investigating some of these ideas. The government and the military were very interested in these investigations too.
Also these concepts of mindfulness and being present are old ones. Tolle wrote a book on it called The Power of Now, but back in the 70s, an important figure in the psychedelic research community, wrote one called Be Here Now, which is really focused on these same essential tasks for achieving mindfulness. His name was Richard Alpert but he took on the moniker of Baba Ram Dass as a spiritualist, after abandoning psychedelics as a method to understanding.
I'm not religious myself but have studied religions a little bit, and the phrase "Know ye not that ye are Gods?", seems to be a statement of this idea - that humans are divine beings. Not just because of our ability to contemplate the universe - the outside world, but also to contemplate the mind itself - the inner-verse, if you will.
It might sound like a lot of New Age pablum, but if you go back to physics, in quantum mechanics, there is an interesting concept that reality is not always the same depending on who you are or where you are or what you are doing. That the "reality" - the essence of what exists or is happening in the real world, is observer-dependent - it is created by the existence of the observer, and sometimes by the act of observing - these are interesting ideas that may support the idea of human divinity - because we can literally create a reality (one of many) by observing it.
More importantly we have the mental/intellectual abilities to discover these things. Which may not make us unique in the universe, but very likely makes us unique on our planet, and within our solar system.
So, going back to what the New Age neuroscientists were looking for - if we can direct our mental powers or channel whatever the source of random received messages and information is, then the possibility also exists that we can manipulate reality - it after all is only what we perceive and experience. If you do not perceive it or experience it, does it truly matter? That is the question - not "does it exist". Because in the metaphysical sense....the limits of existence are the limits of perception.
The other big metaphysical and religious question is, if as these beings that may have the capability to receive information from the universe, via our innerverse, we eventually gain the ability to perceive everything, but to also experience only what we wish to perceive or experience, then what would distinguish us from God?
Many people have argued that if we can do, even in a small way or on a small scale, something that a god could do, then we are also gods. Maybe fledgling ones, or puny ones, but still gods.
Just something I thought about after reading your comment about how life is already amazing!.
That works for smarter than me.
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