[HN Gopher] Notes from the End of a Long Life ___________________________________________________________________ Notes from the End of a Long Life Author : samclemens Score : 43 points Date : 2022-01-07 05:04 UTC (17 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com) | ultramegachurch wrote: | Great article that hits home with a fear of mine. I'm not afraid | of aging or dying per se, but I fear a day when I'm no longer | physically or mentally capable of working towards ambitious | goals. I'm an extremely goal oriented person. I need to always be | working towards something "big", whether it be a personal | project, releasing an album, learning an instrument, landing a | cool job, etc. I fail more often than not, but just the fact that | I'm working towards ambitious gets me out of bed in the morning. | If I am no longer capable of mentally and physically draining | tasks like this... what will motivate me to get out of bed? | helmholtz wrote: | Brilliant. I've been obsessed with death since a close family | member had a heart attack (and lived). In your twenties, with any | luck, you will not get acquainted as intimately with loss as you | will later in life. But when you do, everything else seems | immaterial in the face of, as John Mellencamp put it, us standing | "on this single print of time". It gives you a panic, an anxiety, | about climbing the wrong ladder, about not having enough time for | climbing multiple ladders, but most of all, about time running | out for your parents and grandparents. This article helps me | realise that perhaps with enough brute force, one may yet come to | accept finiteness. | marginalia_nu wrote: | If I might suggest, you may enjoy reading Seneca. He lived | under a death threat while he wrote, and wrote a lot about | death and mortality. | | One of my favorite observations of his is that we are dying | every day. Death stalks behind us and claims every moment that | passes, whether well spent or squandered. Our final hour is not | when we die, but the point where we finally stop dying. | | Our lives are a bit like that of a candle, whether burning | intensely or barely at all, every moment that passes is a | moment that we are approaching the point where we run out of | wax. | sillysaurusx wrote: | If you like existential dread, you might also like | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558. | | (I am become the Amazon of philosophy.) | | I don't think any of us can accept finiteness. At least not | without descending into a spiral of "But then what's the | point?" from which there is no escape without fooling yourself | or abandoning the question. | foobarian wrote: | I have come to believe in reincarnation just through argument | by existence and limits; namely clearly we exist in this | incarnation after however long, finite time that took, and | therefore after death given enough time this will happen | again and it doesn't matter how long that is since we're not | conscious through it anyway. The bummer is that the state is | not preserved. | awb wrote: | > clearly we exist in this incarnation after however long, | finite time that took, and therefore after death given | enough time this will happen again | | Am I understanding you that you believe that because you | went from non-existence to existence once you think it will | happen again? Why? | | I understand reincarnation as a faith based belief (that | can't be proven or disproven) but I don't understand it as | a rational argument. Nothing in life I know of is destined | to repeat. | Koshkin wrote: | I will also need my OLED TV set when I am reincarnated. | xupybd wrote: | This week I've witnessed three people die. | | Two men drowned on Sunday. I jumped in but failed to get them | out. They died less than a meter from me. | | On Thursday my father passed away from cancer. I was with him | in his last breaths. | | Life is so fragile but it's going to end for all of us. Live as | much as you can while you have health. Cherish the people in | your life. | | We are but a vapor in the wind. I'm so thankful for my time so | far, I'm thankful for my Dad and miss him so much. I'm so sad | for the men that died. My hope for their family is that they | can go on living without them. | dhimes wrote: | Wow. I have no words. I wish you peace. My sincere | condolences. | ultramegachurch wrote: | I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your father. Do you mind | expanding on the story of watching the two men drown? I'm | curious how you found yourself in that situation. | Koshkin wrote: | Being "obsessed" with non-existence - yours or someone else's - | is weird. The only thing I could draw from the idea of death | (as the end of existence) is that you need to make the most of | your life, while it lasts, and help others do the same. | awb wrote: | Non-existence is one of the most profound qualities of | existence itself IMO. I don't think it's weird to be | fascinated by it, or to continue to be mystified by it | without drawing the same conclusions you have. | jarenmf wrote: | https://archive.is/iDC9U ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-07 23:00 UTC)