Death

[Received]

First of all, "death" is a complete mystery. The very term signifies something that we by definition can't experience, given that we won't be around to experience it, and this "it" isn't even a thing, but pure negation.

But it's always been fascinating to me how people who really live their lives, who have a sense of purpose, and more particularly in the moment are living lives of purpose (as opposed to someone who dies who did meaningful things twenty years ago), are much more willing to die than people who don't. Nietzsche had said that all ripe things long to die, and I can't help but agree.

So what is it about living your life that makes you ready to die, and conversely not living your life that makes you fear death? This to me a pretty big mystery.

 

[juvenissun]

A cornered and beaten animal usually lost the will of fight. A human in a similar situation may not fear of death any more, religious or not.

If one can identify a worthy goal, then he may overcome the fear of death. The goal does not have to be a religious one. Numerous humanists have this attitude.

However, it would be an entirely different situation if one can embrace death by seeing his life continues beyond it. This is the power of religion.

 

[Paradoxum]

I suppose a purposeful life makes you feel fulfilled, so when you consider death you already feel complete. Someone unfulfilled might look at death and not feel as ready, because they still have things left to do to feel fulfilled and complete.

If you get what I mean.

 

[Ana the Ist]

First of all, "death" is a complete mystery. The very term signifies something that we by definition can't experience, given that we won't be around to experience it, and this "it" isn't even a thigive your feelings ong, but pure negation.

But it's always been fascinating to me how people who really live their lives, who have a sense of purpose, and more particularly in the moment are living lives of purpose (as opposed to someone who dies who did meaningful things twenty years ago), are much more willing to die than people who don't. Nietzsche had said that all ripe things long to die, and I can't help but agree.

So what is it about living your life that makes you ready to die, and conversely not living your life that makes you fear death? This to me a pretty big mystery.

I suppose what you're asking is no different than, "why do people who have something to die for seem more ready to die?" as opposed to "why do people who've found nothing to live for seem so afraid of death?"

Frankly, I'm not sure either of those premises are true. Even if we could do a study regarding attitudes toward your own death, I would severely doubt the results. I don't think self-death is something you can accurately give your feelings on. The very act of dying is unique, and even someone who claimed beforehand that they were ready to die...could very likely change their mind during the act of dying. I'm sure the opposite can be just as true.

So I'd have to ask what caused you to draw the conclusion you did for the OP?

 

[Received]

So you're saying that people who are dying can be measured, but ultimately we can't know for sure what a person's attitude is toward death given that the moment they're about to die they're not willing (or capable) of giving their thoughts about death? If so, I can dig that.

Then again, I don't think the moments before death really are all that philosophical, and a person who struggles with intense pain (which is really what dying, not death, comes down to) isn't an argument at all that people can have negative views on death.

But that's a bit irrelevant to what I'm looking for. I'm open to the idea that people who have a readiness to die because they've lived their lives could have second thoughts moments before their death. I'm just looking at that general sense of death anxiety that corrupts so many otherwise tranquil and happy moments, like when we're at the park, kicking down wine with friends, or snuggling with our lover. But as the for the conclusion in the OP, it's based on my own experience with death anxiety, Heidegger's words on death (that although the physicality of death kills us, the idea of death saves us), Nietzsche's thoughts (see above), and the incredible number of stories of people who have been sentenced with a terminal illness who end up living because they know the end is near (an application of Heidegger's thoughts above). And my own experience, of course, given a scary trek with exogenous hyperthyroidism and the long and ridiculous path off thyroid meds.

 

[CounselorForChrist]

The very act of dying is unique, and even someone who claimed beforehand that they were ready to die...could very likely change their mind during the act of dying. I'm sure the opposite can be just as true.

Thats true. Death is not something that is known for accurate results on how people feel about it.

Example as a christian death doesn't scare me. I look forward to it when the time comes. But lets say today when shopping a gas line explodes and ignites me on fire. Would I still be joyful? Would I still be wanting to die? Or would I want to live? Would I even care either way since I am in crazy pain?

I know now that I am married I look at death a bit differently. While still not scared of it, part of me says "I don't mind when I die!". But the other part of me says "I'm not ready to die and leave my wife behind!".

Maybe we can examine what we think of death but how we see it when its done to other things. For example if you were in the woods with your dog and it fells off a ledge and impaled itself on something but didn't die, but you knew it would at some point. Would you kill it so it doens't suffer or let it suffer until it dies?

If you kill it so it doens't suffer then does that speak to how you would feel about your own death? Would you want to not suffer? Would you want people to let you live in pain or die? Death is complex despite it sounding easy to understand.

 

[Saleena]

Leading an unfulfilled life can lead one to crave death.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I plan on living forever. If I don't I will be surprised. After all , I've always been alive, why wouldn't that continue to be the case?

 

[Eudaimonist]

First of all, "death" is a complete mystery.

It is fashionable for some people to say that. If death is personal nonexistence, I don't see that as a mystery in the slightest.

So what is it about living your life that makes you ready to die, and conversely not living your life that makes you fear death? This to me a pretty big mystery.

Not to me. It's really very simple. If my life has purpose (which it does), and if its purpose is self-contained, that is, contained within my life, that means that my life is an end-in-itself. It isn't just a necessary but unimportant preliminary to something that follows.

So, for me, I accept my finite nature, and inevitable death, because death is no threat to my meaning in life. My purpose is contained within my life, and it is completed simply by living. I do not long for death, but I do accept it.

If my life did not have purpose, I would feel that something was missing. Death would terrify me because I would feel that it would never be complete.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ana the Ist]

So you're saying that people who are dying can be measured, but ultimately we can't know for sure what a person's attitude is toward death given that the moment they're about to die they're not willing (or capable) of giving their thoughts about death? If so, I can dig that.

Then again, I don't think the moments before death really are all that philosophical, and a person who struggles with intense pain (which is really what dying, not death, comes down to) isn't an argument at all that people can have negative views on death.

But that's a bit irrelevant to what I'm looking for. I'm open to the idea that people who have a readiness to die because they've lived their lives could have second thoughts moments before their death. I'm just looking at that general sense of death anxiety that corrupts so many otherwise tranquil and happy moments, like when we're at the park, kicking down wine with friends, or snuggling with our lover. But as the for the conclusion in the OP, it's based on my own experience with death anxiety, Heidegger's words on death (that although the physicality of death kills us, the idea of death saves us), Nietzsche's thoughts (see above), and the incredible number of stories of people who have been sentenced with a terminal illness who end up living because they know the end is near (an application of Heidegger's thoughts above). And my own experience, of course, given a scary trek with exogenous hyperthyroidism and the long and ridiculous path off thyroid meds.

I'm not saying our last moments are philosophical either. Rather, death is such a unique experience (nothing in our lives to compare it to) that one cannot possibly know how they would feel during death before it actually occurs.

Let's say you've never taken magic mushrooms before, and I ask you to describe how.you would feel while on magic mushrooms. You've got information on what it's like....you can maybe take a guess....but once you do them the way you feel is nothing like what you expected. Maybe it's a similar feeling to your guess and it's not that surprising. The point is, you don't really "know" till you've been there.

 

[Received]

It is fashionable for some people to say that. If death is personal nonexistence, I don't see that as a mystery in the slightest.

I do, given that, well, it's just not "experiencable" -- nothingness, that is.

Not to me. It's really very simple. If my life has purpose (which it does), and if its purpose is self-contained, that is, contained within my life, that means that my life is an end-in-itself. It isn't just a necessary but unimportant preliminary to something that follows.

So, for me, I accept my finite nature, and inevitable death, because death is no threat to my meaning in life. My purpose is contained within my life, and it is completed simply by living. I do not long for death, but I do accept it.

If my life did not have purpose, I would feel that something was missing. Death would terrify me because I would feel that it would never be complete.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I just don't think a life has purpose or meaning in the sense that it seems unending and everflowing, a sort of given a person has after he starts perceiving things in the right way. I think purpose is a continual affair -- like the apostle Paul said, "I die daily," so too in a similar sense with purpose: we live lives of purpose daily (or not). What does it take to live a life of purpose? Not just some grand sense about things (although that helps immensely), but a continual fulfilling of our possibilities. To live life where our possibilities aren't fulfilled isn't quite purpose. Maybe we could go further than say that hope isn't simply the realization of possibilities (although that clearly does grant us a sort of existential oxygen) but also the fulfillment of possibilities. Or maybe you could call that faith (in a secular sense): hope is the realization of possibility, and faith is the fulfillment of possibility. Obviously I don't mean faith in spiritual sense here.

And it seems like death is something I fear in my life when my meanings aren't fulfilled -- when they're just possibilities, when I don't make the movement of faith (and it seems like the moment I decide not to take this movement, what was originally hope becomes despair -- despair over the possibility of my fulfilling these possibilities). It seems like fear of death isn't just the fear of physical nonexistence, but rather the fear that our possibilities aren't fulfilled -- a sort of existential regret that we didn't plant the seeds of possibility that we were given.

 

[Received]

I'm not saying our last moments are philosophical either. Rather, death is such a unique experience (nothing in our lives to compare it to) that one cannot possibly know how they would feel during death before it actually occurs.

Let's say you've never taken magic mushrooms before, and I ask you to describe how.you would feel while on magic mushrooms. You've got information on what it's like....you can maybe take a guess....but once you do them the way you feel is nothing like what you expected. Maybe it's a similar feeling to your guess and it's not that surprising. The point is, you don't really "know" till you've been there.

Right.

I'm talking more about fear of death as an existential concern, well before the realistic possibility of death presents itself, e.g., we are diagnosed with terminal cancer. Fear of death creeps into all of our lives, provided (of course) that we have the idleness necessary to make it a concern.

Which is a bit interesting: death anxiety might be predominantly a problem for societies or persons with a lot of time on their hands.

 

[andy b]

its a gateway nothing more nothing less if it was terrible why would we be born.Its funny there was a time i feared it but now i kind of want it ..its the ladder to our ending or the final turn in the deck of cards its gonna come so you may as well embrace it.

 

[Received]

I guess what I'm saying is that fear of death isn't at all most essentially a fear of not existing, or even the pain involved with the process of dying, but rather something much more psychological and existential, having to do with our possibilities. To fear death is to fear an end, and the reason we fear an end is because we haven't even started a beginning at a particular moment in our lives -- the beginning involved with starting to fulfill the meanings, purposes, or possibilities that are set before us.

 

[andy b]

i fear missing my children thats about it in my case the rest is incidental

 

[emilie mayer]

The closer you become to the Lord Jesus Christ the less fear you have of death.

 

[emilie mayer]

If Jesus is your savior you have eternal life...... Jesus conquered death on the cross for all who accept Him as Lord and savior

 

[Gottservant]

Death by its nature cannot be experienced directly.

Therefore, those who wish to live their life directly, must first contemplate death.

Having faced death, it is then incumbent on them to live until they can face it no more.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

When I think of people who lived until the ends of their lives with a purpose, people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. Look at how they died.

Apparently, if you are living life with a purpose then you are prepared to die for it. That, it seems, would explain how such people respond to impending death.

Hasn't some of Western philosophy, with respect to the question of what constitutes a good life, said that the question is not what is worth living for but what is worth dying for?

 

[Ana the Ist]

When I think of people who lived until the ends of their lives with a purpose, people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to mind. Look at how they died.

Apparently, if you are living life with a purpose then you are prepared to die for it. That, it seems, would explain how such people respond to impending death.

Hasn't some of Western philosophy, with respect to the question of what constitutes a good life, said that the question is not what is worth living for but what is worth dying for?

If I'm not mistaken, you have that backwards.

Not what is worth dying for, but what is worth living for?