Asklemmy

The fear of death is kind of an evolutional necessity. Otherwise our species wouldn't have survived. Without the fear of death we probably wouldn't be here. In some ways it's a crucial companion of existence. idk why, but seeing it as a condition of existence helps me put it in perspective. Like being alive is great and I guess this is the price I have to pay. Most of the time it's worth it.

The same nagging notion sometimes claws at my brain as well.

The notion of consciousness not existing is especially troublesome for me to wrap my mind around. Logic says that no consciousness means nothing to perceive said lack of consciousness, therefore no loss there (for the subject, of course). That somehow... does not make it any better.

First time I've been through general anaesthesia I was wondering what it'd be like and a bit fearful of it. Happened in an instant, and I woke up what felt like immediately. Afterwards my conscious mind fixed that with perhaps artificially introducing passage of time to make everything fit. If I think back now, I certainly know some time had passed. But had it? And how much? No idea. Clock said around 3 hours, so I'll go by that.

Shortly thereafter I had a massive bleed and lost about 1/3 of my blood (by looking at amount of hemoglobin before and after the event). The more I lost, the less coherent I was and the less anything mattered. By the time I got to the ER, I had tunnel vision and survival mode on. But I wasn't scared for some odd reason... nothing mattered much. Not sure how close I came to actual death then, but it felt pretty close.

What I can advise... enjoy what you can, and don't waste your hate on anything. It's pretty much not worth it. Unless your life or the life of loved ones is in immediate danger, screw it. Guy cut you off in traffic? Fuck'em. It's not worth shortening your life for some rando with not enough respect for himself or others as to break the social contract. Just choose your preferred intensity of sustainable (for you) hedonism and go from there.

I also hope it gets easier with age, but the prospect of becoming more jaded that I am now is not appealing. Though if it makes everything easier...

I will say this, though. Not existing was (probably?) fine. But being brought into existence just for it to be taken away after a blink of an eye (in terms of billions of years of non-existence vs the average lifespan) seems like cruel and unusual punishment.

I had a conversation with my girlfriend a few days ago about this. We are fine, everything is good, but if an asteroid would come in a few days, we would both be OK with it.

I guess that's weird to most people.

You keep on existing (at least for now)

Honestly not well.

I've come to terms with the fact that I will one day die, and it could happen at any moment. The hard part is knowing that's true for everyone I love too.

I take comfort from the Good Book. And by that, I mean Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The Tralfamadorean take is comforting. My conscious experience may its reach endpoint, but my existence will still have been, so to speak, embedded in the mountain range of time. The calypsos of Bokononism in Cat’s Cradle are good, too. Think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.

Furthermore, there’s a parable about the mountain, the one that a little bird comes along once every 100 years and scrapes its beak upon. When that mountain is worn away, only the first instant of eternity will have passed. Do we ever stop to think about what it would actually mean to exist forever? If it were infinite life, then once you’ve done everything that you enjoy for the billionth time and gotten so thoroughly bored of it, hey, you still have infinite time to go! After the Sun goes supernova and consumes the Earth, what will you do while floating in space for a few trillion years? If it’s existence after death, then a century or so of life will be as nothing compared to the vast sweep of eternity in the afterlife. Any number divided by infinity, and all.

Honestly, I figure that the urge to “live forever” is in actuality a desire to put off the existential crises to an indefinite time in the future. Cosmic procrastination. But living literally forever has its own (probably worse) existential horror. Everything has to end, especially in a universe that will end or at least cease being interesting, and that’s the only way that life can have any meaning.

The existential crisis comes no matter how long the Fates trim your strand, eventually you stare down the end. It’s just the price of admission.

Swipe ⬅️

Watch some near death experience videos on YouTube. It's comforting.

I don't have a crisis, problem solved.

God wants me to do something before I leave this wonderful planet, that's why I live :)

Why do you care if you exist. Are you the Queen of england or something.