Plus a friend of mine before he died told me he couldn't wait to die and looked forward to his reward after having lived a hard life, whether that meant he would have eternal sleep or see his loved ones again. He wasnt too concerned and told me a few days before he died to not worry, to think of it as the next adventure. He comforted me when it was I that wanted to comfort him. But he didn't need me to. Amazing human being who I'll never forget.
atheist here not afraid of the idea but worried about the pain at some point. long rambling post to address question below apologize in advance for rambling.
The value of life comes in the finiteness of it. It is a blink of time--a micro-blink and poof gone forever and soon forgotten. No legacy (that matters to the deceased) and others may think about you for a few years after but 10 years plus not even an after thought in most others.
But it is that fleetingness is what gives it beauty. The idea i got to live for decades, make friends have pets,do things, much more things that many on earth didn't or could not experience at my level or for my durtation at least,--I am fortunate in that idea.
I am at the age where my parents are deceased, many of my relatives are deceased, co-workers, people I went to school with and friends are now deceased. I watch them fade away and understand the process for the ones that died a illness based death. A few died in car accidents but were dead on impact and probably were dead before they fully realized the danger they were in. Blinked and they were gone out of existence for the rest of space and time.
I think fear of death is actually one of the largest anchors in belief in God for a lot of believers, believers who today, live in such a data-driven world where we know so much about our existence and no evidence for any God exists. in that idea I have to confess I am skeptical when a person who anchors to the idea of an afterlife claims to not fear or worry about death. Not that it matters and it is more of a sidebar but "afraid of death" questions will have hoards of believers say not afaid while side-steppig the irony of a belief in afterlife (aka did not actually die / cease to exist) as a reason.
Nothing is kind in existence, but if you had to anthropomorphize it, indifferent. For the record it would be anthropomorphizing it. blind luck has such a huge impact on how long we live, what gene pool we got (which impacts our health) and the quality of life we end up with (with some degree of wiggle room).
In that idea life has no inherent meaning--but only the meaning we assign to it for the duration of our lifetime. The values we assign creating the value we percieve. Duration of life has such a large impact on that. Being in my late 50's I fgure I got pretty lucky and even if I don't make it to 60 got a better ride than most. I can either be bitter or have angst for the fleetingness of it or have appreciation for the decades I got to spend. I guess for me, and just a personal note that is hard to qualify but, I am going to go with the glass 1/2 full approach and fell lucky i got what I got.
I given bad news a while ago but survived. I have seen loved ones lose. I have the opinion that we are made up of energy. When we die the energy is released. Maybe part of that energy is reborn, retuned in another soul? maybe part returns to the universe. The cycle continues. I personally don’t think there is anything to be fearful of except the potential suffering and pain just before we pass away.
Death is not something to fear. The something to fear is the road to death... but that's life.
Life is the road, and the road is tough. Death is the destination, and the destination is relaxing.
I don't fear death... I fear suffering...
Suffering (to my limited knowledge) only happens during life. Though Ghosts potential could prove me wrong... but if you can prove ghosts are real, then you should have a pretty good life, as you'd then be both quite smart but also quite creative and could sell ghost knowledge and stories.
Because I don’t feel I’ve got too much to lose. If you’ve got a great life, then it’s scary to think of what’s next I’d imagine. It hasn’t been fantastic for me, so I’m not scared of the unknown.
I came very close to it recently, my body was shutting down and the physical part of it was helluva rough but mentally I felt very chilled and simply ceased caring about it. I was ready.
Maybe it's like this if you exchange delivery with death
Conversation in the Womb – A Parable of Life After Delivery In a mother’s womb were two babies.One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
Experiencing loss of loved ones and loss of myself is guiding me deeper in the art of letting go. Death is a big let go. I'm living through a ton of transitions. Death is a big transition.
The only thing I am afraid of about dying is having those regrets people often talk about. It seems like many people turn to all the things they think they did wrong in their life as opposed to focusing on the positive memories.
@CrazyMusicLover Don’t you think that those regrets would last only momentarily and end once you have passed? Or do you think you will live an after life of regret?
@Stuffy I don't believe in afterlife. Once we die, we're gone. I just think it's a pity that the last thoughts some people have are regrets and that they feel like they wasted their life.
@CrazyMusicLover I don’t really believe in afterlife either. From everything I’ve read about people who have “almost died” there is never any description of feeling terrible about regrets. So I don’t think you need to worry about that.
I certainly dont want the pain or agony of dying. But I dont fear what comes next. I have few regrets to keep me here and I have ticked the boxes I need to. As we get old, the law of diminishing returns kicks in and it takes more and more work to hang on to less and less of ourselves..😷
@swirlie Overall I have been fortunate. But I hope that when I reach that tipping point myself I will have the strength to deal with it on my own terms and not become a burden.. Having recently had to place my wife in care frees me to make that decision myself. But not this day..😷
@whowasthatmaskedman I remember seeing a movie one time where a man lived alone up in the mountains and his greatest fear was dying and having nobody around to bury him if he died. His solution became to dig his own grave with a shovel while he was still young and energetic enough for the task, then he would sit in his own dug grave on a wooden chair he'd placed down in the hole with a ladder leading down to it anytime he wasn't feeling well, just in case he didn't wake up!
He referred to his idea as his 'pre-arranged funeral', which actually made sense in a way!
@swirlie I am not that fatalistic. Or wasteful of my time..I am just keeping an eye of the lifetime accounting program for the assets and liabilities..When the time comes I hope to leave them laughing and wanting more, not waiting for me to get off the stage..😷
Everyone dies. It's part of living. I think we probably do it over and over and always have. My only problem with it is that I'll bet it's gonna hurt something fierce. Hopefully not for long.
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?'” (John 11:25–26, NASB 2020)
I used to not care because I didn't wanna live. Plus I always said, "I'll be too dead to care anyway" 🤷 I don't think that way anymore though. Now, I'd rather not die lol
