[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)