Have You Accepted Death? Share Your Experience and Age

[DaveC426913]

I don't think anyone can say they've accepted death until they've actually come face-to-face with it.

 

[ForMyThunder]

It's good that you are optimistic, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

What I meant was that no one knows the hour death will come; so it "sneaks up" on you. If you are referring to experiencing a long, painful death, then I know what you mean. I was referring to the actual moment you die, not the process by which it comes.

 

[Alex6200]

I have a few thoughts about death:

-I'm not comfortable with it, at all. I mean, I can get by without living in fear, but if I was told I was going to die then I would be very afraid.

-The scary thing to me is thinking that I will never see anything again. There will never be any more life, no more questions, no more thoughts or dreams, no more universe, nothing.

-What comforts me, in the end, is to remember that everything I love about not being dead - being part of a loving

-In a more metaphysical (read bs) sense, I don't like to draw hard lines between me and you, life and death. Yes, I'm not the same person as anyone else, but we're all pretty similar. In effect, only part of what I identify with as "I" ends when I die. The person I was 5 years ago is dead, and if you go back far enough you'll find a person that is in almost no way similar to me. Life and death is a blur, and it's something that I don't understand at all.

To me, accepting death is just breaking free of your ego. Once you accept that the universe is beautiful and meaningful with or without you, you can accept not being a part of it.

 

[robertm]

To me, accepting death is just breaking free of your ego. Once you accept that the universe is beautiful and meaningful with or without you, you can accept not being a part of it.

I greatly approve of the first sentence of this statement, however, I would say that there is no evidence to show that you will ever not be a part of the universe. You can take solace, if you will , in knowing that the atoms that make up the organism you, will continue to actively participate in the universe for quite a long time to come.

 

[Gear300]

Death is cool...just like life...yeah...they're both cool

 

[Gear300]

Granted, I've almost died 7 times...but still If i get hit with death, I want no regrets in the times before I die. Live in the moment type of thing I got going on..no risk no rewards..

You did die 7 times...your consciousness, however, can not perceive the possibility of your death so its entity still lives as information while creating its own reality separate from the one you were in before your near-death experience. In such illusionist realities, you survived. Its sort of like what happened in "The Sixth Sense" but more intense.

 

[leopard]

Age: 23

I don't fear death, but I want to live first. Of course, if I died here and now, I wouldn't care, but it would have been hard to accept that I was going to die within 3 months e.g.

 

[maze]

This whole discussion is framed wrong. Accepting death is not a noble or enlightened thing one should strive for.

 

[leopard]

Why not? You don't have to strive for death to strive for accepting it.

 

[maze]

You are warping your mind and sense of self in order to feel good about a bad situation.

 

[leopard]

No, I'm not. I don't feel good about it, I just don't feel bad about it. Living forever wouldn't have been fun, would it?

 

[maze]

Ok then, you are warping your mind and sense of self to feel not-bad about a bad situation.

 

[WaveJumper]

I am with Einstein on this:

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead"

Age 32.

 

[leopard]

Ok then, you are warping your mind and sense of self to feel not-bad about a bad situation.

It's not a bad situation, it's not even a situation.

 

[Renge Ishyo]

Age: 30

I'm chronically ill and have had to come to terms with the idea of death some time ago (and it's impossible to describe the emotional fallout that occurs when a person at any age finally realizes that they are going to die; I'm not talking about when they first think of death as a "distant reality" but when they get that indescribable "feeling" in the body when death finally becomes a concrete fact in the now). Do I "want" it to happen? No, there are still things I wish to do. Will it happen? Yes, I am not in denial. The facts are everywhere.

Death is not all bad, practically the only certainty in my life is death. And knowing at least *something* about the future is sort of comforting sometimes. There have been many times where I have faced a highly stressful situation where I have been able to calm myself by reminding myself that "no matter what I do here, I'll be dead in a little while anyways and in the big picture this really doesn't matter" or there have been other times when I was suffering from my illness and I calmed my body down by reminding myself that "the pain won't be here forever, it will go away when I die." So in a few ways at least, I have found that even death can have a soothing effect.

 

[WraithM]

Hi,

I am 18, and I have not accepted death. I don't like the word "accept." It implies complacency in my mind. I would fight death despite my sort of nihilistic perspective on life. I personally think that life has no intrinsic meaning or purpose, and as per existentialism/objectivism, one needs to define one's own meaning, etc. I think that there is a reason why I fear death or am discomforted by the idea of dying. Nature doesn't want me to die for whatever reason even if the reason doesn't have an ultimate purpose. I don't mean to imply that the natural world has a will, but rather that I have instincts and my brain telling me to survive and propogate, so I'm going to do that.

To sum that mess up, I think that it's a good thing to fear death. Though I have thought about my death and fully realized that I will die one day, I just don't like the idea of letting go or getting rid of stress, anguish, anxiety about death. Those emotions give me a drive to live fully and fight to my dying breath.

Lol, I probably sound crazy there. It's 5 am.

 

[Haibara Ai]

I'm rather young, and I haven't accepted death. Yet I don't fear death.

To fear death is to limit life, and every day is a good day to die. No day is a good day to throw your life away.

Granted, I've almost died 7 times...but still If i get hit with death, I want no regrets in the times before I die. Live in the moment type of thing I got going on..no risk no rewards..

I figure right before I'm about to die I'll reach a new plane of consciousness and be able to understand more than I've ever dreamed of understanding..Something will just like "click" for the long seconds/minutes before I die.

But maybe It'll end so fast I won't get to experience that... who knows?

Everytime I thought I was going to die, I've had a realization in which I was blind to before it. I solved a problem that was bothering me for the longest time once hahaha...

Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

I agree, I don't fear death, and I've nearly died before. Living and dying is the two nessesary things in your life. We've all experienced Living now, so when the time is right, why not just smile and say "I've already experienced Living, now it's time to experience the mysterious death"

 

[leopard]

You don't experience death.

 

[DaveC426913]

You don't experience death.

Thta depends on whther you're talking about the state of death (which lasts forever) or the event of death (which lasts a moment).

I would argue you experience the event of death (even if you're not around to remember it.)

 

[leopard]

You experience the event of death, but there's nothing mysterious about that.

 

[Topher925]

This is a great thread. I find it very intriguing that everyone seems to have so many different points of view and I have not seen a single post that uses religion to explain what death is or define how someone should feel about it (this is a good thing IMO).

I was faced with death earlier this year in March. For still some unknown reason I started to lose my ability to speak, stand, and could not longer see. Long story short, as I laid in a hospital bed convulsing, unable to see or speak and feeling an intense amount of pain throughout my body, I was convinced that I was going to die. I assumed I had some undetected brain tumor or some other illness that would ultimately bring me to my end. However, I didn't really have any feelings or emotions about it and I remember being rather apathetic about the situation. I remember thinking about the things that I wanted to do and all that I wanted to accomplish but in the end, none of that really mattered. I was just another part of the improbable phenomenon in this world that we called life and if I lived or died was not significant. Just another spec of mold on an orange whirling through space.

While I didn't enjoy the experience, I am glad I had it. It changed how my perspective on many things in this world. But if I was to die right now, I would be upset which I suppose is because of my natural instinct to live. And unlike some of you in this thread, I would like to live forever.

 

[WaveJumper]

And unlike some of you in this thread, I would like to live forever.

At what age?


Life is cycle - you are born, you grow up, go to a kindergarten, school, university, marriage, children, work, grandchildren, retirement, death.

How many cycles would it take till you are really really fed up? Would it really be forever? Would the cycle of life seem that incredible the second time, or the 3rd time, or the...

 

[Topher925]

I would around the age I'm at now (23) would be pretty good. But I doubt I will actually be following your "life cycle" as you mentioned. Why couldn't I live forever being something such as an international assassin or a drifter?

 

[WaveJumper]

I would around the age I'm at now (23) would be pretty good. But I doubt I will actually be following your "life cycle" as you mentioned. Why couldn't I live forever being something such as an international assassin or a drifter?

But being an international assassin is not the best recipe for eternal life on Earth in my book. Unless you are a killer of the Terminator type.

 

[Renge Ishyo]

But being an international assassin is not the best recipe for eternal life on Earth in my book. Unless you are a killer of the Terminator type.

Sort of reminds me of a Galaxy Express 999 sort of scenario. If you are not familiar with it, that story was about a young boy who gets promised by an attractive woman that if he goes on a journey with her across the galaxy that she will make it so that he can live forever. At the end of the journey he finds out that he is going to be transformed into a robot and worked forever. That was epic late 70's sci-fi (ahh...the glory days of sci-fi...).

 

[leopard]

This is a great thread. I find it very intriguing that everyone seems to have so many different points of view and I have not seen a single post that uses religion to explain what death is or define how someone should feel about it (this is a good thing IMO).

That's because it isn't allowed to discuss religion on this forum.

 

[leopard]

unlike some of you in this thread, I would like to live forever.

Then you don't understand infinity.

 

[fabelhaft]

I'm 21 and have been recently dwelling (probably excessively) on this very topic. It was just a couple of weeks ago that I truly comprehended that this existence I'm so comfortable with is only temporary. Following that, I spent a few very dark and hopeless days wondering what the use was in anything, given its perceived futility. I'm not accusing anyone here of being disingenuous in their courage, but I often think our minds prevent us from truly grasping that WE will die. It's no abstraction. We are a part of nature... we were born from it, given this one brief chance to appreciate it, but gracefully or not, we must render this precious opportunity to our successors. This is natural, and so are the associated anxieties... I think we should never feel embarrassment if we experience some terror when realizing that every day draws us closer to our last... and after that, the permanent dissolution of a lifetime of experience, until even the largest ripples we left in others will too dissipate in time.

I suppose that's the price to have lived.

 

[moe darklight]

The idea of not existing boggles my mind... I have a hard time believing anyone who says they understand it.
I understand that it'll happen, but at the same time my mind tries to convince itself that it cannot... to me the world is only as I've seen it, and I've only seen it through my own eyes, so the idea of the world outside my personal perception is very strange to me.

OK. That sounds like I'm self centered; let me rephrase: I'm not saying "how could the world go on without me?" I understand it will and has before me, but my personal experience of the world is very self centered, as is anyone's, because we only know the world through our own eyes. So it's very hard for me to imagine not being, or the concept of not being.

Does that make any sense? this is giving me a headache

 

[baywax]

Here's my definition of 'Accepting Death': To accept death is to be ready to die, free from stress, anguish, or personal emotion. Personal emotion is limited to self inflicted emotion. A counter example to personal emotion would be emotion that one has because of someone else's emotion, i.e. crying because someone else is crying; I'm saying that you can have non-personal emotion even after accepting death.

I'm curious as to who actually has accepted death so far in their life. Please post if you have or not and your current age.

I'm 16, and I have to say that I have for myself. The way I see it, if I die today, one, I wouldn't care once I'm dead anyways because care is an emotion and you need a brain to execute emotion, two, I know that everything I once loved, loves me back, and three, I wouldn't care about the time I wasn't able to spend on earth, because see example one.

Edit: Post your age, and how long you have felt that way, and why.

I'm 189 and I've been at death's door a couple of times. It only takes one time to be close to death to accept that its a state that isn't going away and will eventually overcome the state of life you enjoy now.

So accepting it is easier for me. The RCMP declared me dead at the scene of a car accident. That declaration was scanned by the local radio station and there was no waiting to notify the next of kin. It was announced all over the place. So, when I survived after a lovely stay in the small town hospital I was in and came back to High School... everyone said I was dead. And that didn't bother me as much as experiencing the cold clammy hands of death wrapping around my heart. So I just laughed them off... and pretended to be a Zombie.

Zombies have accepted death. And you thought you were smarter than a Zombie!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No out of body experience?

 

[baywax]

No out of body experience?

Zipparino.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Zipparino.

I'm scared.

 

[baywax]

I'm scared.

If you are close to the doorstep of death and the ambulance guys get you inside to take you to the hospital, try to tell them "no oxygen". They automatically start slapping oxygen on your face and when they do, you drift into someplace you're likely to never return from. I was successful in keeping them at bay and lived.

I was not so successful in chatting up the nurses and other women in the ER. That may have had to do with all the blood in my hair, making it stick up like a ZOMBIE's

So add to your list of things you must have when you leave home.
Clean undies and a hair brush.

But, what kept me alive?

One, deny death with all the strength of what's left of your body.

Two, let the shock make you think things are important (it keeps you going). I was overly concerned about where my air mattress went. I never let up. I lived to find my air mattress.

Three, fool death by thinking the other people are worse off than you! (I was the worse-off victim)

Four, be happy you're alive enough to think at all.

 

[drankin]

The idea of not existing boggles my mind... I have a hard time believing anyone who says they understand it.
I understand that it'll happen, but at the same time my mind tries to convince itself that it cannot... to me the world is only as I've seen it, and I've only seen it through my own eyes, so the idea of the world outside my personal perception is very strange to me.

OK. That sounds like I'm self centered; let me rephrase: I'm not saying "how could the world go on without me?" I understand it will and has before me, but my personal experience of the world is very self centered, as is anyone's, because we only know the world through our own eyes. So it's very hard for me to imagine not being, or the concept of not being.

Does that make any sense? this is giving me a headache

I determined this myself when I was about 12 yrs old. In my own mind I find it impossible to simply not exist. Even after my body is gone. I believe others have come to this conclusion early in human history and it led to the belief in the after-life, reincarnation, among other theologies. Personally, I've come to the conclusion that we are, in fact, eternal. Just not in the physical realm.