Thread: Are you afraid of death?

I must agree that Laughing Man is a disguised troll. When argueing with a troll like that it's best to have an argument because you do it for urself. Don't even try getting a human reponse out of the likes of him because he's either faking his personality or he's a brainless typing machine of some sorts.

Just look at his avatar rofl.

Originally Posted by tommo

But what did he get to? Nothing. Use your brain more please.

He didn't get to "nothing". When you peel an onion, do you make that peel magically disappear? Unless you are living in your own little dream world, then when you sit there and peel layers off an onion you are changing the form of the onion but not its existence. In the end you have an empty hand and a whole bunch of onion peels on the ground. That doesn't make something into nothing.

You discard those pieces and get to nothing. Yeah fuck it. Have a nice life.

Originally Posted by Dthoughts

I must agree that Laughing Man is a disguised troll. When argueing with a troll like that it's best to have an argument because you do it for urself. Don't even try getting a human reponse out of the likes of him because he's either faking his personality or he's a brainless typing machine of some sorts.

Just look at his avatar rofl.

Right, I make arguments and stick by them with rationalizations. That sure makes me a troll. If only I would keep my tail between my legs then everyone would see me as a regular contributor rather then a troll. Make an argument or keep your sentiments to yourself. You are the one trying to troll. Trying to get a raise out of me with comments that have nothing to do with this topic.

My avatar is from a show that I like. It's pretty pathetic that you have to make the claim that I am a troll because of a small picture.

Originally Posted by tommo

You discard those pieces and get to nothing. Yeah fuck it. Have a nice life.

Discard them in what capacity? Just because you throw them on the floor doesn't mean they no longer exist. This story about the monk is nothing but silliness. Take an onion and peel it. Do the peels magically go away? No. They stay on the ground or where ever you put them so you are not making the onion nonexistent. You are not making something into nothing. You are merely changing its form. It's like those peelable liquorice candies. If you peel them all apart, do you suddenly get nothing? No you get a set number of liquorice strings. Some concept with the onion. If you think you can make the onion into nothing then I have this neat magic trick with my thumb where I can discontent and reconnect it. It drives 6 year olds flabbergastic.

Ok well if you're not a troll you have a serious problem with being unable to accept or even think about things from another persons perspective. In fact, you are so bad at this that you jsut make up your own version of what someone was saying and argue about that.

So you can see how people would think you're a troll, because that's basically the definition. Minus the purposeful annoyance. (Which would be there if you were a troll).

We are not saying the onion disappears.

We are saying you don't GET to anything. There is no definable centre.
You peel the layers way until there is no more layers. Yes they are on the ground.
But not in your hands, you are left with nothing in your hands.
No centre. Just discarded layers.

You do not GET to anything.

Protip: Calling people trolls is not conducive to a decent conversation.

If it's worth anything, Laughing Man isn't here to troll anyone.

Originally Posted by tommo

Ok well if you're not a troll you have a serious problem with being unable to accept or even think about things from another persons perspective.

I accept what people think they know. The problem concerns what they think and what actually is.

Originally Posted by tommo

In fact, you are so bad at this that you jsut make up your own version of what someone was saying and argue about that.

I don't 'make up' what people say. In fact I quote them then line by line retort to their statements. If their whole post is on the same general premise then I will retort to that. I don't have to sit around pondering about what people say/meant. I have this terrible habit of believing that people actually mean what they say and say it because they mean it. From these comments I naturally draw out the inferences of what they say. I am capable of being wrong, I am human after all. How people react to the presentation of these inferences is beyond my control so you won't find me wringing my hands over whether people like me or my writing style.

Originally Posted by tommo

So you can see how people would think you're a troll, because that's basically the definition. Minus the purposeful annoyance. (Which would be there if you were a troll).

Being is a troll is bringing forth what people infer by their comments? I will be honest, I like to stay one step ahead of the game. I sometimes talk ahead of people to prevent boring conversations about side topics. I think it is somewhat of a courtesy because I give defensive arguments for arguments that you may not even conceive. So basically its thinking the best of you, well until you prove that I shouldn't think the best of you but then how can I be faulted for such a change? I'm not a hopeless optimistic that thinks everyone deserves to have the best thought of them at all times even when they act contrary to it.

Originally Posted by tommo

We are not saying the onion disappears.

We are saying you don't GET to anything. There is no definable centre.
You peel the layers way until there is no more layers. Yes they are on the ground.
But not in your hands, you are left with nothing in your hands.
No centre. Just discarded layers.

You do not GET to anything.

Well if I put an apple in my hand then throw it that also causes me to have something in my hand and then nothing in my hand. Again this whole tale is nonsensical. Onions don't have empty mass in the center or else what would the layers layer onto? Nothingness? They all just congeal together without a center mass to stick onto? Are these magical onions?

No one wants to admit they're afraid.
I'm afraid of death. I'm afraid of my parents dying, both of them are already old and smokers. My dad has no health care. I don't want to be left behind.
I'm afraid of my friends dying. I don't know how to recover after another blow like that. But I don't want to live the rest of my life in misery and loneliness.
I'm afraid of dying myself. I don't think there's anything beyond, and I'm afraid I won't be able to do everything I've planned before I die.
Or what if there is something beyond? Hopefully I've been a good person and I will be together with my family. But then again, I'm heretic. So will I burn in hell?
But I'm afraid, ultimately, of non-existence of myself and the people I love. If you say you aren't afraid, I don't believe you.

Originally Posted by Savy

If you say you aren't afraid, I don't believe you.

Allow me to respond with one of my favorite quotes:
"Nope, no matter how bad things seem, they can't be any better, and they can't be any worse, because that's the way things fucking are, and you better get used to it, Nancy. Quit yer bitching."

Seriously, what am I going to do if I drop dead right now? Why bother stressing over something that is both unknown and inevitable? Could be paradise, could be hell, but most likely, I'll stop existing and won't care one way or the other. All memories will be gone, all thoughts and threads of consciousness gone at the point of death. If I'm wrong? Cool, new stuff to explore. If not? Whatever, I don't exist to comprehend that. There is nothing there to fear.

It doesn't matter whether you consider the onion peel layers laying on the ground after you peeled all of them away. You are either left with nothing, or everything. Everything includes the onion peels laying on the ground, it includes the ground which they lay on, and it includes the sky and everything in between. When you die, either you become nothing, or you become everything. In either case, you are not separated from anything. There is nothing other than you, or everything exists but not 'you'. Both are the same with a flipped perspective.
There is a part of you that observes what you experience, beyond conceptual thought and interpretation, beyond the narrator's dialog running through your mind, that was never born. This part of you which was never born, also never dies. It is the eye of the hurricane. The hurricane is your body and your mind. But there is a sun-beam of light coming through the eye that is your life shining. Upon death, the hurricane disperses, and the eye joins with the rest of the sky, even though it was never separate from the sky.
Our bodies are vortexes of energy/matter, like hurricanes or tornadoes. Food and breath and water and thoughts and ideas coming in and out that give the illusion of self. The real self is the sky that shines through the eye.

I'm extremely afraid of death, admittedly. I try not to think about it, but something always seems to come up that eventually leads to me thinking about the end. I always try to think of the quote of Mark Twain that says "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." Even when I think of it that way, I still worry because I'm pretty pessimistic and overall a depressing person.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

It doesn't matter whether you consider the onion peel layers laying on the ground after you peeled all of them away. You are either left with nothing, or everything. Everything includes the onion peels laying on the ground, it includes the ground which they lay on, and it includes the sky and everything in between. When you die, either you become nothing, or you become everything. In either case, you are not separated from anything. There is nothing other than you, or everything exists but not 'you'. Both are the same with a flipped perspective.
There is a part of you that observes what you experience, beyond conceptual thought and interpretation, beyond the narrator's dialog running through your mind, that was never born. This part of you which was never born, also never dies. It is the eye of the hurricane. The hurricane is your body and your mind. But there is a sun-beam of light coming through the eye that is your life shining. Upon death, the hurricane disperses, and the eye joins with the rest of the sky, even though it was never separate from the sky.
Our bodies are vortexes of energy/matter, like hurricanes or tornadoes. Food and breath and water and thoughts and ideas coming in and out that give the illusion of self. The real self is the sky that shines through the eye.

I'll have what he's taking.

I wasn't afraid of death, until I almost died.
I always thought I had a grip of the concept.
But when I was face to face with my own PROBABLE death, for a few hours, it became very real to me.
I have never looked at it the same way again.

It scared the shit out of me.

That is interesting. May i ask how you almost died? I almost died a few times, and I had to find the will to live. Usually it is my attachments to people I love that keeps me going in these situations. One time I climbed Mt. Shasta in September in the middle of the night with no warm clothes. That was stupid. I was hot while I was climbing. Getting up to 14,000 feet it got very windy. I realized my mistake, but it was too late. What a stupid thing to do. Duh! I had to huddle under a rock way above tree line in the wind on top of the highest mountain around until the sun came up. I was talking to myself in order to stay awake. I knew from reading that when people get hypothermia, first they lose rationality, then when they are about to die they start to feel very warm and comfortable. I remember getting irrational, like it was so windy and dry up there that static electricity was building up and I had miniature lightning bolts going all over me and my clothes and jumping to the rock. I thought that I was going to get struck by lightning and I got up and almost ran off the cliff. But luckily I caught myself and realized that there were no clouds in the sky and being under a rock was probably the safest place to be on top of a mountain if there was lightning anyway. I remember how easy it would be and just let go and go to sleep and never wake up again. I was very tempted just to give up and relax. I wasn't relaxed, I was very tense and curled up trying to keep the little bit of heat I had left insulated in my belly. Finally, after a long grueling night, the sun rose and it got warmer and I could see the way down. I remember how I thought I had problems and challenges in life that I needed to solve, but a brush with death always puts things into perspective and makes me feel thankful to just be alive and that I really didn't have any problems after all, they were all in my mind.

Another thing that keeps me from dying is the embarrassment of dying from doing something stupid. Sometimes I feel, I can't die now, they will find my body and everyone I love will think how stupid I am for dying like this. I almost drowned once, well actually I did drown. I was unconscious when I was rescued and they did the mouth to mouth resuscitation and I pulled through. I remember giving up and saying "well, this is it." I remember the peace once I gave up, the peaceful floating down. That was in Hawaii. Again, people thought I was stupid, because everyone in Hawaii knows how to swim very well and knows how to swim out of rip-currents and knows when not to go in the water. Each time I came so close to death I felt utterly peaceful, so peaceful, each time was one of the most influential and amazing experiences I have had. I feel so lucky to have had those experiences and still keep living.

there are ways that I don't want to die. But when I die, I want my body cut into pieces and left on the mountain top for the vultures and coyotes to eat. I have been eating food my whole life, life feeds on life. When I die it will be time for me to give back instead of locking myself in a box or burnt so that my body is useless for others.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

there are ways that I don't want to die. But when I die, I want my body cut into pieces and left on the mountain top for the vultures and coyotes to eat. I have been eating food my whole life, life feeds on life. When I die it will be time for me to give back instead of locking myself in a box or burnt so that my body is useless for others.

Me too. But I know they won't do that. So if I know I'm going to die soon, I will go out in to the forest and die there so the animals can eat me.

Originally Posted by tommo

Me too. But I know they won't do that. So if I know I'm going to die soon, I will go out in to the forest and die there so the animals can eat me.

When I die I want the medics to hook me on radical life extension machines, wires hooking to my brain, oxygen machine, machine pumping all my blood, everything possible. I want to blow through all the savings I have saved up through my entire life, just to survive a few meager seconds longer, and then have my body frozen in a last ditch attempt for survival. At least that is my ideal vision, at the moment I can't afford stuff like that.

Originally Posted by Alric

When I die I want the medics to hook me on radical life extension machines, wires hooking to my brain, oxygen machine, machine pumping all my blood, everything possible. I want to blow through all the savings I have saved up through my entire life, just to survive a few meager seconds longer, and then have my body frozen in a last ditch attempt for survival. At least that is my ideal vision, at the moment I can't afford stuff like that.

HAHA!

Yeah, I thought about having my head frozen. It costs $10,000 I think.

It would be a pretty amazing experience to wake up 70 years later or something and everything just being so advanced. Or demolished to shit. Either way.

Yes, and be stuck in a limbo dream world for 70 years would be great or horrible!

i answered this thread before but my account was deleted in the crash. i am extremely afraid to die because i know it will hurt really bad. i also fear it because i will be alone.

Won't it only hurt real bad while you are alive? And if you die a painful death? You don't have to die a painful death. yes, pain sucks, and then death is a relief. Loneliness is meeting yourself. Being with loved ones is sharing yourself. I fear these things also: pain and loneliness, but not so much loneliness as I used to.

there's just something about it...literally everything else in life you don't have to go through alone if you don't want to. but then there's death. i know mine will hurt really badly for some reason and makes me fearful of everything, which i realize is extremely stupid and irrational. but i don't know how to reverse it.

Confront it. Imagine going through the dying process while you lie in bed going to sleep, imagine you are dying. Practice for the big day!

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

That is interesting. May i ask how you almost died?

Very similar story, actually.
Except that I was out in the woods, and I was drunk.
lol
I had expected to reach my road that I was shooting for about half an hour earlier, but I hadn't hit it. The road was only about three miles away, as a straight shot. By cutting through the woods I could save seven miles of walking. It occurred to me that I was lost. I kept walking. Hours went by.

I became sober, and very dehydrated. I thought, "As soon as I find ANY sign of civilization I'm going to follow it to the nearest house and ask them for water.", but I did not. I kept walking. Hours went by.

It was now mid-day, the hottest part of the day. I finally said "That's it. As soon as I find ANY source of water I am going to drink from it.", but I did not. I kept walking. Hours went by.

I passed through a huge field. I began to get weak. Thorns ripped into my flesh, and I no longer cared, because it was nothing compared to the agony I felt due to dehydration. I began falling down, I had to pick myself back up, repeatedly. It was then that I knew that I could very well die. If I passed out, NOBODY would find me for days, or weeks maybe. I hadn't told ANYone where I was going. This was, I believe, the scariest moment in my life, for I knew that I was most likely just minutes from absolute death. The possibility of death became very real to me. I knew that even though all I wanted was to lay down and conserve my energy, that if I did not keep going I was going to dehydrate even more in the heat. I kept walking. Probably another hour went by, and I could no longer hold myself upright. I began to crawl. At this point I was vocalizing my anguish, so when I finally took a moment to breath I heard it. A stream! Just then, I dry heaved, and nothing came out.

I suddenly received a rush of adrenaline, and got up to stumble towards the running water.
I knelt down by a very thin, shallow stream, and stuck my face in it. I sucked up dirt and bugs and WATER! I kept drinking for some time. Then I collapsed. Laying there, I knew that I still did not have any strength. The water was in my stomach, but it was not yet benefitting me. I have never felt anything like this before in my life. I felt like I could actually feel the water slowly entering the different parts of my body. It was a very strange, and new feeling for me.

I decided to try again, in the opposite direction. I had been walking for about six or eight hours, and I knew it would be a long trip back. I turned around, and I started walking back.
Five minutes later I came across... THE ROAD that I had left ORIGINALLY. The large field that I had just crossed was nowhere to be seen. In my mind I had walked for about six or eight hours in the same direction, and five minutes in the opposite direction, to find myself back at my starting point. If I believed in a God that granted miracles, I would have called this a miracle from God. Instead, I just call it a God damned miracle.

I now fear death.
I have also vowed never to become a tour guide.

It is very easy to get lost in the woods and stuff. That is why getting your bearings are so important. You were probably walking around in a huge circle the entire time(or more likely zigzagging back and forth in all sort of weird patterns). Ideally in a situation like that you want to pick some sort of land mark in the distance and walks towards that. If you keep it in sight you know you are going straight. If you don't have some sort of visual way to tell if you are going straight or not, it is almost impossible to go straight. There is a reason we invented the compass 2,000 years ago.