Well, I woke up this morning to my mom calling me, telling me my cousin died last night. Apparently there was a fire in the middle of the night, and he couldn’t get out in time.
Death is such a weird thing. We can sit around and think about it, and think of all these wonderful philosophies and explanations, and study all these different religions, and try to prepare ourselves for the inevitable. But it seems nothing ever captures it.
When someone we know dies, it just bitch-slaps all that philosophy right in the face.
I think the truth is that no one can know the truth about death, until we experience death. And since no one can experience death for us, it turns out to be a pretty scary idea.
I think I would prefer that death stay this way. An insolvable mystery, that every one of us is forced to deal with. I’m not sure we have a choice in the matter :-P.
I do know one thing: someday in the future, I’ll become brave enough to create philosophies about death. Then death will strike, and remind me who is the host, and who is the guest.
May 8th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Peebrain, my depest sympathies… I understand your point here…. the truth is I had never thought that philosophies would count for so little when its our own selfs that will be dealing with death…. a dark thought, but bizarelly enough, it doesnt make me feel any worse about the whole death thing…. for all I know, death at some point of our ife will probably feel like a good thing…. comming to think of it, it actually is… otherwise, you wouldn’t appreciate being alive…. lol - got carried away…. anyways, that’s my two cents… Sincerely,
~Francis
May 8th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Sorry about your loss.
I’ve always wondered about death too, because I wanted to know what happens to me after I die. I think we turn into a ghost though, because that would explain ghosts(I beleive in them).
May 8th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
“When someone we know dies, it just bitch-slaps all that philosophy right in the face.”
That’s the biggest problem people have when it comes to religion, philosophy, and ideals, it all seems good until it happens to you.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Sorry about your cousin, Sean. Death is a scary thought for almost everyone, and some of us just simply aren’t afraid of it, but when someone we know dies it completely devestates us regardless of how we feel about it.
Also, I’m not entirely sure why, but I seem to have next to no emotions, and what I do have just gets weaker all the time. I think I better put finding a way to restore them really high on my priorities, but I have no idea on where to start. Any chance someone has some advice/ideas on restoring emotions?
May 8th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Sorry for your loss. Theres a good series of books called His Dark Materials that talks about religon and all that jazz and they also bring up good ideas about well alot of things.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Death isn’t scary for people, dying is. I think death is actually a good thing for most people.
May 13th, 2007 at 3:18 am
I think the issue with death is two-fold.
1) It reaffirms our fear of death that controls so much of our lives. Just look at how many things you do out of fear, then look at how many of those fears are rooted in fears of death. You will likely be shocked. If your fear of death was dealt with (tricky I know), then the issue would be gone. I think the key to all this is realizing that death is just another transformation, albeit a little more drastic than puberty.
2) I notice that a lot of our emotional hangups over death are for TOTALLY SELFISH reasons. We’re more concerned with loss of a friend or loved one because of what they supplied for us (whether it was money, sex, energy, validation, etc.) rather than the actual loss of life. People have breakdowns all the time over things like “How am I gonna pay for everything now?”, “I’m just so lonely now” and “I’ll never get to enjoy X about them again”. Their own greed becomes all-consuming and the person’s death is less important except in the context of what the surviving people lost.
Similarly, you all know that person who then uses the death for endless reassurance (but really, they just want energy and attention) because they want to squeeze even more benefit out of this event that has happened to THEM! Truly bizarre.
Bottom line? When people die, do as (I believe it was) General MacArthur said “Don’t mourn the loss of lives, instead celebrate the fact that such men lived”.
P.S. Not meant to insult anyone, especially you Sean. But I think it had to be said, even if it is a hard message.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
my grand mother recently pased away however bad i felt i knew that its what she wanted.she survived cancer for about 3 years and when it finaly moved to her brain she stoped taking kemo.
death is definatly a bitch slap toy eh face and it stings for months.
but in the end i guess death is just a way of solving problems
i sometimes find myself thinking about how much i think like her now that shes gone.and i have a non changing reference
June 2nd, 2007 at 6:18 pm
quote from the post:
Then death will strike, and remind me who is the host, and who is the guest.
For some reason, I don’t know why, but it brings a tear to my eye and an upwelling through my chest. Where’d you find those words man!
June 10th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Maybe dying is just the transformation of the soul becoming liberated from the body. Is it not true, that some people that had near death experiences (NDE’s) had the feelings and emotional characteristics of OBEs? For me, dying is the painful process of saying goodbye to the physical, and everything material and entering the world of the unknown. Perhaps, it is good, perhaps not. No one knows, but one thing is certain: people will always keep on making assumptions about their fate and try to imagine what lies beyond. So, really, death shouldn’t be all that scary as one can simply suppress that fear and let one’s beliefs take control of the fear. As you said Peebrain, it is dying that we’re most afraid of, because we don’t know when the process ends or how fast it is. I completely agree with you there. I’m sorry for your loss.