When you die you stop being aware and will no longer exist. So from your egos perspective it will be just like before you were born. You won’t even have a perspective.
I think it’s sad you don’t think life has value.
And that’s the problem; that should not be. Once we exist and have conscious awareness, that line should never be crossed again. We should not become unaware of having existed when we are aware of it now.
I think it’s sad that people tell themselves life has value as a false means of comforting themselves over how awful this all is.
That’s not true for everyone. Why can life and things in it be beautiful to one person but not to another?
If you don’t answer at least think about it.
2 Likes
Did you mean to write “can’t?”
Things can be beautiful, but that doesn’t do anything. That doesn’t help anything. And everything beautiful in life will be taken away. Not can be; will be. And that is awful. Life is ultimately about losing everything you gain, and that is awful.
Out of curiosity, do you believe in something like a soul or spirit?
And if hypothetically there was some part of you that could be classed as such and it was eternal, just moving from body to body, would that make you less bothered by the ending of your current life?
Instead of presuming that our current lives are the be all end all, perhaps it’s simply like a suit of clothes that when the spirit gets done with it changes into something else.
Or is that just worse?
1 Like
I don’t know if I believe in the idea of a soul or spirit. Let’s say, I believe there could be such things, and that I hope there are.
The idea of continuing on in spiritual form is fine, but not the idea of moving from body to body, because in such a case, the soul/spirit does not remember its previous existence (otherwise it would be talked about in detail all the time), and if that is the case, it’s really no different than having actually died and ceasing to exist. If you don’t remember the being you were and the experiences you had, then gaining a new life isn’t actually a new life at all; it’s someone else and the you who you were is gone.
Because later I said “…but not to another?”
Which sounded like a double negative to me.
Anyway…
I couldn’t help but think that if you did, one thing they might do at some point is have you try meditating. I know I’ve offered this idea before in this thread, but the point is, I suppose, to ultimately quiet what they call the “monkey mind” that keeps chattering away with (negative) thoughts.
This whole idea of impending doom, after a countable infinite amount of time… It’s nothing more than thoughts. Why worry about what you can’t control?
Whatever you do, I hope you work it out.
Edit: Insert 47 choking out a chattering, hyperactive monkey. 
1 Like
1+ to meditation and mindfulness. I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to quiet my own monkey mind. But I’ve had periods where I’m acutely aware of my ego. It’s really a profound exercise to have an impulse/thought/emotion > react to it > react to your reaction to it > see how you experience things from an “outside” perspective.
Could be about anything. Being mad about traffic. Realising that while your impulse is valid, recognise there’s nothing you can change about it and then let it go. It’s outside of your control, don’t worry about it. You’ll get to where you want to go either way. 5 minutes extra doesn’t matter much at all.
Gives you a lot of emotional control you’d otherwise never know you were capable of. Highly recommend.
I don’t claim to be an absolute zen master. Far from it, it still takes effort for me and some times I forget all about mindfulness.
2 Likes
This question answers itself.
I cant meditate. My mind is always going, and during the brief periods where it slows down, I don’t like it. I’d never be able to achieve such a state, and don’t have enough care for it to bother.
I’m glad this still gets replies, im doing a little better myself but can feel slight pangs of panic when i catch myself ruminating on it. My best advice to @Heisenberg is you’re a lot like I am at that time: you’re essentially looking for answers to the biggest question of the human condition of which a satisfying answer or a confirmation for the most likely answer is literally unknowable as of now. I think the problem with death is that we as human beings are designed to live and solve problems: death gives us something we can’t problem solve and it also stops us from doing the thing we’re designed to do as a species
I think my best advice is unironically to try to set yourself a deadline for when you can think about that kind of stuff, then work on what you want to do in the interim. essentially do what John Lennon says: have life happen when you’re busy making other plans. My best anecdote for how trying to solve fear of death is futile is I used to read exstensively The Mortal Atheist blog, which you can guess is a big wiki of sorts on how to get over Death Anxiety. Now the person who wrote the blog was nice enough, but you got the idea that they’re trying to stop death fear from happening and trying to prescribe secular books as the antidote
But then someone who was trying all this advice wrote this very beautiful takedown of the ethos of the blog: that she was also having death anxiety and no matter how much she tried to convince herself of the secular ways that it had to happen and it’s natural and not scary, the very fact that people could have shitty or unfufilled lives before being whisked to non-existence was just an evil thought to her and that trying to convince people immortality isnt desirable is futile because it could always benefit the people who we miss and who had less fortunate lives than us
Now I’m not saying this to be anti-secular or pro-religious, quite the opposite: I think that none of us can ever truly conquer death anxiety because it’s so hard wired. Religion, agnosticism, atheism, none of these people are actually okay with dying or think it’d be cool if we all ceased to exist because otherwise the entire species would be dead. Life insists, that’s what’s so admirable. We’re all in this together and we all think life is good enough to will it into being for as long as we can. The best solution is to live your life and enjoy it, rather than ticking down the days until you get the answer. It’s always stuck with me what that woman said because it does deconstruct how anyone who tries to say they are unafraid of death is trying to deny their own humanity - not to insult anyone in this thread, nor Socrates or any other philosophers who are fine with death, I know you guys have come to your conclusions but I’m more speaking on the kind of people who try to sell “death be not afraid” as some sort of self help huckstery - there’s no such thing as a mouse that is unafraid under the shadow of a hawk
2 Likes
Irwin died on the job, whiz kid. He died filming a documentary on deadly sea creatures with Jacque Cousteau’s grandson because that was his a part of his job.
1 Like
And why was that his job to be on? Because he loved doing stuff like that, which can be quite hazardous.
That’s not the great thing most people make it out to be. I wouldn’t want to die doing something I loved; that would mean the thing I loved is what got me killed! It would be an extreme betrayal. I don’t want my life to end because of something that was supposed to bring me joy.
1 Like
Don’t do this. You said recreationally, recreation isn’t what you do for a living and is, in fact, the literal opposite of a profession. Loving what you do doesn’t magically also make it a pastime as well.
So you would rather die of something awful like a disease or shitting yourself on the can like Elvis?
Have you ever considered your relationship with death is like this because your own life is actually profoundly unfulfilled? Life will kill you so you better make life work for it.
1 Like
Ok, what he was doing at that precise moment might not have specifically been for recreation, but putting himself in dangerous environments with animals capable of causing injury was his thing both on and off the job. Do that enough times, something is bound to go wrong, as our skydiver friend could also attest.
Of course not. I’d rather just clock out in my sleep, or while watching my favorite show or something. And no, that doesn’t count, because watching something and doing something aren’t the same, and I’m not likely to die because I was watching a show.
Life isn’t about being fulfilled. It’s not about anything; we’re just here, and then we’re not, and that’s the entire problem. Life is inherently unfulfilling in and of itself anyway. You have to struggle every day to stay alive by keeping yourself fed, hydrated, and breathing, just at the simplest level. And the fucked up part is, your failure is already an inevitability from the moment you become alive, making that whole struggle futile to begin with. And no amount of joy or happiness that it gives you in that time between start and finish is worth or can make up for the pain it causes when it eventually takes those things away from you. Of course my relationship with death is like this because my life is unfulfilled: all our lives are unfulfilled. I’m just no longer able to distract myself from that fact at the same level most other people are. Believe me, I wish I could. I want those times back.
Jeez I hope you didn’t throw your back out moving those goalposts.
But Felix didn’t even die parachuting. He died paragliding, which is completely different though something he probably did often. Every day you live is another day you might get cancer, a horrible wasting disease or something else terrible, life is a crap shoot and at least dying doing what you love rigs the odds in your favour.
Man you could have just typed down “Nuh-uh” or “Yeah” and said just as much as what you have here.
2 Likes
Also just want to say I’m sure a lot of people find their life very fulfilling and I don’t consider death a failure.
2 Likes
I’m sure they do. They’re wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t need to continue doing fulfilling things, you could just be content with what you already did for the remaining years or decades of your life. Like anything else that’s considered good, it’s only temporary and wears off, and you have to go looking for the next thing to bring fulfillment, which means you never really had it in the first place. And I’m not saying death itself is a failure, but that you will fail at staying alive. So the struggle is ultimately meaningless, because you can’t actually win.
Oh, sure, like I’m gonna do that when there’s a perfectly good opportunity to pontificate. 
I’m quoting this, but it’s a reply to the entire post.
I’m not wrong to find life unfulfilling just because I continuously do fulfilling things. On the contrary actually, this is the precise reason live is fulfilling. Good wears off, but so does bad and everything else. And yes, you had fulfillment. Your mentality is very depressing (I beg your pardon, there wasn’t a worse way to put, I know). The struggle isn’t about surviving, it’s about living.
Every man dies, but not every man lives. Do you want to be the one who dies happy and fulfilled by all the amazing things that happened in your life, or the one that dies thinking he failed, thinking that nothing he did changed anything?
I’d rather be the first.
1 Like
It makes. No. Difference. Unless there is an afterlife, once you are dead, you are not going to be looking back on your life and thinking about all you did or what you achieved or anything. You’re just gone. And anyone who remembers you will also eventually be gone. And eventually, all of humanity will be gone, so nobody will remember anything, or be aware that there ever even was anything, rendering all of humanity’s actions and experiences moot. This is the outcome no matter what. So neither of those two options you describe makes any difference. You don’t make any impact on the world, and you don’t remember it yourself. None of the “amazing” things that happen in your life actually amount to anything; the outcome is the same whether you do them or not. Living is just being alive; there is nothing more to it. There is no “living” in the manner you describe; that’s quaint poetic nonsense people came up with to convinced themselves that they’re doing something right with their existence, but they’re not, because the outcome is the same either way.