Originally posted by VickiMints I think now more people are becoming more aware of mortality thanks to the world being the way it’s becoming now, but still the sort of event you’re describing shakes people a lot as it very well could be their first experience at a more mature age with a death somewhat close to them for whatever reason. Maybe some people here will say “I’m not afraid of dying, it’s going to happen to all of us”, but my opinion is that most people, especially teenagers, probably don’t have that attitude. Dying, when they choose to think about it, might be the one thing that some actually do fear.
The moment you stop fearing death, is the moment you stop enjoying life, imo.
Translation: YOu say you’re not afraid, I hold no respect for you, and ask them why don’t they just go do something stupid to get themselves kill and save the Gene pool from getting even more contaminited with stupid.
Originally posted by Valkyrie Esker The moment you stop fearing death, is the moment you stop enjoying life, imo.
Meh. I don’t really fear death, per se. I fear (certain kind of) pain. Similar, but different fear, I suppose. The WAYS that I can die scare me more than death itself. If I died and didn’t know about it- no big deal, right? Instant death I can handle. Hell- it would be a change of pace (no matter which religion… and I include atheism in religion) is correct. What I would fear is being tortured to death or drowning or being set on fire… other lovely things like that.
I’m not afraid of death. Not wanting to die and being afraid of death is different. I don’t want to die because there are things I want to do in life that I haven’t done, and due to my beliefs, I just don’t want to stop existing. I don’t fear death because I know it happens one day regardless, therfore I am accepting my fate - theres no point in being afraid of death because regardless of whatever happens, no matter who you talk too, no matter who you know, no matter who you are, one day, you die, and there’s no getting around that. It’s a fact. If there are no facts in the world, there is one - that one day, you will be dead.
I think the moment you stop fearing death is the day you start having fun. I’m going to die anyway, so I’ll smoke this blunt. I’m going to die someday anyway, so I’m going to go sky diving - that opposed too I dont want to smoke that blunt because I’ll die, or I don’t want to go sky diving because I think I’ll die. That’s being afraid. If you aren’t afraid, you have fun.
Okay, maybe I should clarify a little. I hate to use teenagers for examples, but then that’s what we’re talking about here I think. I’m not saying people are weak - that’s not what my focus was. It was that people somehow have to deal with how life works.
A good number of teenagers most likely haven’t had much experience of death in their families that they can actually recall, and what experience they have had was most likely older relatives dying. So, one knows that old people die, and that when we get old we’ll all eventually die. The trick is the getting old before dying and the old idea that “those bad things that can happen where someone dies, they won’t happen to me, it’s going to be someone else.” When someone that may have been a friend, or gone to the same school, or worked at the same place who was around the same age dies before that whole getting old part, it sort of shakes up the “logical” order of things, and younger people have to make sense of that and deal with it however they will before they go on. That’s what I was trying to say. Did it make any sense?
CC, I agree with you on the difference between weakness and emotional capacity. I believe in the need for people to express their emotions in a healthy manner, since repressing them is a recipe for personal well-being disaster.
edit - I’ve been afraid of death for almost as long as I’ve been alive. It’s not dying itself that frightens me, but rather it’s the whole “unknown” factor. The thing for me is that I don’t do things because I’m going to die anyway - I do them because I’m living now, and I won’t always be living this life like this. It might seem like different wording for the same idea, but it’s a different feeling for me.
Originally posted by Sinistral People die for various reasons, DT. Some “good” , valid reasons like a car accident, other stupid ones like drug overdoses.
Yeah. But this thread makes me worried about this world becoming crueller every day when we don’t even care if someone died of a “good” valid reason.
Sorc: Well- I don’t smoke that blunt because its distorts the way that you think, not because I fear dying from it- but you’re kind of right in a way. However- I think that its your right to do so- whether the law is on your side or not. Its silly to make something readily available illegal. It “works” just like prohibition works. But thats another story.
And sky diving- ah! I’m afraid of heights. Its not the splat part, either- its the feeling of falling- it leaves you feeling helpless.
Those were examples, rhetorical situations that didn’t require actually reasons for why you weren’t doing them ;p
Anyway, you say it like people at one time held a great respect for dead people, which I don’t believe. I don’t think our attitude towards people hasn’t changed at all, except that some people have inflated it with more bullshit ego stroking as I displayed in my first post.
That reminds me when someone died in a snowboarding accident at my school a few years ago.
The guy was a jackass to me, but it was my friend’s half-brother, so I DID care a little, but not because of that jackass, but because of my friend.
Anyway, the Moral Education Teacher (the biggest bullshitting class ever, and if you don’t believe me ask the various other people that had to suffer through the Quebec school system, they’ll tell you the same) decided to make that course the “let’s talk about people dying and how it affects us.” course. I spoke about death in general, and not of THIS guy’s death. Some people told me I was dodging the subject, but I answered : “Not only didn’t I know the guy, I seriously do not give a fuck about him.”
Oh, and before that, 4 people left the class in a protest because we were being hypocrites since we didn’t know that person at all. I applauded them.
It’s just that society has some rituals and people are requested to perform these rituals right. When speaking of someone who convived in the same space as you did, you are to say good things about the person, even if the perished was the devil.
Unfortunately that’s hardwired in the heads of many people due to social validation. You try to say bad things about someone dead during his/her burial and see what you get…
I knew a person who commited suicide his name was Tyler, I didint know him yet every one was crying about it even people that didint even know him. Im happy he is dead I believe that humans are filth placed on this accursed planet to destroy eachother for the fickle gods sake.
Originally posted by Wind Storm of Etequa I knew a person who commited suicide his name was Tyler, I didint know him yet every one was crying about it even people that didint even know him. Im happy he is dead I believe that humans are filth placed on this accursed planet to destroy eachother for the fickle gods sake.
Well, I found your post disgusting, but that’s just me.
Originally posted by Wind Storm of Etequa I knew a person who commited suicide his name was Tyler, I didint know him yet every one was crying about it even people that didint even know him. Im happy he is dead I believe that humans are filth placed on this accursed planet to destroy eachother for the fickle gods sake.
I agree wholeheartedly with Flintedge. I’m not HAPPY anyone is dead, and to say that humans were put on this “accursed” planet to destroy each other is angstier than even I’D ever be.
Originally posted by Wind Storm of Etequa Im happy he is dead I believe that humans are filth placed on this accursed planet to destroy eachother for the fickle gods sake.
Well why don’t you make it shorter and kill yourself or go commit murder then? Really, what kind of fubared world view is that?
Originally posted by Nulani They’re afraid. Afraid that if could have been them, and that no one would have cared if it was: That they wouldn’t have left anything.
That’s part of what I was trying to say. Then again, I get a lot more wordy sometimes.
Originally posted by Zero Well why don’t you make it shorter and kill yourself or go commit murder then? Really, what kind of fubared world view is that?
It’s called angst/bullshit/love me because I hate everyone world view.
Edit: To keep this post on topic:
Whenever someone in my family dies, I don’t really mourn. I just kinda acknowledge the fact that I’ll never see them again, and maybe miss them a bit if I knew them.
My freshman year a girl died of leukemia. I only knew 3 people that actually talked to her. I’m not saying every single person in the school (well, the ones that mourned) were doing it to put on a visage of caring, but I <b>know</b> a few of them didn’t give a shit, and were doing it to look good. I didn’t show very much caring at all. I didn’t know her, but it is pretty fuckin’ sad that she died in her freshman year, but death cannot be avoided.
Originally posted by Steve It’s called angst/bullshit/love me because I hate everyone world view.
Bows to Steve’s making-my-point-for-me-ness. When people seek sympathy where I can see them, it grates. Sympathy should be given. I say this with the full knowledge that I do this myself sometimes. I make me sick as well.
Originally posted by Steve Edit: To keep this post on topic:
Whenever someone in my family dies, I don’t really mourn. I just kinda acknowledge the fact that I’ll never see them again, and maybe miss them a bit if I knew them.
My freshman year a girl died of leukemia. I only knew 3 people that actually talked to her. I’m not saying every single person in the school (well, the ones that mourned) were doing it to put on a visage of caring, but I <b>know</b> a few of them didn’t give a shit, and were doing it to look good. I didn’t show very much caring at all. I didn’t know her, but it is pretty fuckin’ sad that she died in her freshman year, but death cannot be avoided.
I’m more or less the same way. When a person at my school died, I would usually feel a tad sorry, because hey, who knew if the world had lost a decent person, but I was and still am a little too infected with stoicism to show anything of the kind. Hell, I didn’t cry when my grandmother died until we were on our way home from the funeral. Ran out of stiff-upper-lip, you might say.
Originally posted by Valkyrie Esker
[b]The moment you stop fearing death, is the moment you stop enjoying life, imo.
Translation: YOu say you’re not afraid, I hold no respect for you, and ask them why don’t they just go do something stupid to get themselves kill and save the Gene pool from getting even more contaminited with stupid. [/b]
Not fearing death is different than being a morbid shell. If you don’t fear death, you accept that when it’s time, the party’s over; that’s all that needs to change. It doesn’t mean you grow obsessed with death, or that you seek death, but that if Death were to pass you by a hair’s breath, you wouldn’t flinch. Life is enjoyed by living, not by fearing death.
The moment you stop fearing death, is the moment you stop enjoying life, imo.