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Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#21

Post by ddingus »

anonymouse71 wrote: post #5
gregjor wrote: post #4

Acceptance. No point worrying over something that will happen no matter what I do, or how much I worry about it. I just hope to die suddenly and unexpectedly, as Julius Caesar supposedly said. Odd, but the older I get the less afraid I feel about dying. I’m 60 now, don’t give it much thought other than thinking about how it might affect my wife and kids. An eternity elapsed before I was born, and the universe will go…

The problem is that this is the exact perspective I don’t want. I missed out on half the eternity and really don’t want to miss out on the other half.

It could all end tomorrow. True for any of us.

Fact is, we all get some time here. It is not much.

The other hard fact is, barring some reasonable fraction of time possible for us, what we, you, any of us want has very little impact on what we get.

You don't have to accept it. Whether you do, or not, mostly matters to you, and you don't have to tell either.

Maybe one day our understanding will allow us to transcend this state of affairs. I sometimes think about all the lost souls.

Then I think about the ones who will be just this >.Gotta be rough for them, right?

So, here is how I play it:

While I am here, I can amplify the good, love, laugh, play, do, build and the way I see it, am lucky!

I am here, there is a lot to do, people I love, much to experience.

Was a free ticket to a great ride!

When it ends, I won't be worried any more than I was before getting that ticket.

So far, nobody reports back. When it is over, it's over.

There are other travellers here. Ticket holders. Sure glad for that! We don't have to do it alone, and I found someone! She is the best. That helps a lot.

All told?

Very nice problems to have. No complaints!

I do not think about it much past that.

Travel well. Enjoy the ride. That's what a lot of us do.

...or not.

Works the same either way.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#22

Post by gregjor »

anonymouse71 wrote: post #5
gregjor wrote: post #4

Acceptance. No point worrying over something that will happen no matter what I do, or how much I worry about it. I just hope to die suddenly and unexpectedly, as Julius Caesar supposedly said. Odd, but the older I get the less afraid I feel about dying. I’m 60 now, don’t give it much thought other than thinking about how it might affect my wife and kids. An eternity elapsed before I was born, and the universe will go…

The problem is that this is the exact perspective I don’t want. I missed out on half the eternity and really don’t want to miss out on the other half.

What you want, in this case, makes no difference. Desire is the root of all suffering. Try to make the most of the time you have, stop squandering it with worry and desiring things you can’t have.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#23

Post by xupybd »

I'm Christian and have very deep beliefs in life after this. They bring some comfort to me on this topic. However in reading your words I suspect such a belief would not bring much comfort. I think you may have some anxiety issues that could be worth addressing.

Regardless of your personal beliefs there is next to nothing you can do to preserve this life beyond the brief existence you're currently enjoying. That's a hard pill to swallow but it's also a very freeing one. There is very little value in worrying about things totally out of your control.

If you have the means it might pay to talk to a therapist about this. You don't have to be unwell to see one. They can help guide you into developing new tools to deal with the anxiety and perhaps find some peace. At the very least talking to close friends or family might help.

Edit: just read the follow on in the comments. It looks like you have tried these suggestions. Sorry I don't have much else to suggest. Only this, if you worry to much about your end you could miss out on your now. Good luck figuring this out.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#24

Post by anonymouse71 »

LinuxBender wrote: post #20

I only concern myself over the things I can control. I follow the scientists that are working on reversing the age of cells. Currently the human trials are only working on specific body parts, but in a few years it may be applied body wide assuming no major issues come up. The most promising work I am following right now is by Dr. David Sinclair and his team at Harvard. [1] There are many teams in numerous countries…

Thank you. This is super interesting. And hopeful.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#25

Post by anonymouse71 »

dinkleberg wrote: post #19

There is no perfect answer for this. Philosophers have been seeking to answer this since the beginning of time and we will all continue to do so until the end of time. Personally, I try to make a regular habit of thinking about my mortality. Visualizing my friends and family after I'm gone, and seeing how the world keeps on ticking. It helps me limit my own self-importance in the world but also helps free my mind to…

Thanks. Clearly this is a thing that has motivated at least some subset of our species to try to figure it out. Part of it is that I feel like there is no purpose. Each of us is an accident of one of a few hundred billion sperm produce on a given day meeting one of tens of thousands of eggs that was released near that day, multiplied by all our ancestor’s probabilities of having existed. Philosophy and religion seem to me to be the initial crude attempts to understand. And thinking about this lately I’ve been contemplating how we probably just don’t have the brain structures to contemplate a lot of these concepts in the first place and can only talk about them by analogy (god is like a man that lives in the sky; or an AI that is emergent behavior from machines we can build. That kind of thing.). Maybe that’s why imagining our own death is so terrifying: we can’t understand it. But it also seems so simple because we see it every day in one form or another. I can name a pencil Steve, break it in half and feel loss.

I’ll maybe check out The Good Place when I feel less vulnerable and hope it brings me some measure of comfort.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#26

Post by anonymouse71 »

MauranKilom wrote: post #14
anonymouse71 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You describe perfectly the experience I had at one point many years ago. I don’t want to experience every cubic meter of the universe. And I lived my life for at least the past decade with the idea that I will chart my own path of what I want to experience and largely succeeded so far. But what I am after is fundamentally different than experiencing the whole universe as individual pieces. It’s more that I don’t want…

> It’s more that I don’t want to be limited. To me these are two sides of the same coin. If two of your distant grandchildren each get married at the same time, you won't get to see both. There are physical limits governing our lives. One of those involves mortality, but many others impose similarly restrictive limitations.

They aren’t in the same category. You have a choice of which wedding to go to. It may be annoying but your ability to choose something isn’t taken away, you are forced to make a choice. If your life stretched infinitely mathematically, you could assume that you will experience everything at some point.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#27

Post by anonymouse71 »

FroshKiller wrote: post #15
anonymouse71 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t remember it but I am aware of it. After death there is no awareness.

You are not aware of the 13.8 billion years that preceded your birth.

But I am aware of their existence, no? If not, would we be discussing them?

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#28

Post by anonymouse71 »

radihuq wrote: post #18

I think it could be worth exploring your spiritual beliefs. A couple years ago I decided to give this a shot and for about 6 months I actively explored questions like: - Do I believe in god? - Does the universe exist? - What is my purpose in life? I did not, and do not, have definitive answers but going through the rabbit holes trying to answer these questions have led me to adopting specific axioms which I use to he…

I did this a while ago and came out on the other side feeling like I fully explored this field as an option. I can’t quote you the Bible, but I understand the principle of the thing. Same with other spirituality and different philosophies. Also ideas like we are in a simulation. In the end they all fall short of being logical enough to be believable. Especially since lots of them simply demand blind belief.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#29

Post by anonymouse71 »

mathgenius wrote: post #16
anonymouse71 wrote: post #2

I am well aware that with the state of the world and the winter’s short days are clearly affecting my reactions to these thoughts. I know that and am taking steps to try to fix my brain chemistry. I have an appointment with my primary care coming up where I plan to discuss changes to my medications that might help make me not panic. But ultimately I am not after simply being calm as I get older and closer to death. T…

> cannot accept a system that requires blind belief or that has some obvious logical flaws. There's a lot of religions out there. Many of them are bunk, and many are not much better than the local chess club. But there are some potent practices out there, it's not all about "blind belief". This crisis you describe is precisely the "religious" impulse (or whatever you want to call it). For some people they end up clim…

Thanks. I sampled a good number of religions and spirituality. I know for a fact I can train my brain to believe that I have an invisible soul that will live on. Or only if I die in battle. Or only if I wear a cross that has been blessed by the Pope. Or only if I smoke the right sacred herbs. Or only if body is preserved a certain way. But I am afraid of self delusion, which is ultimately why I feel like religion is a bit of a cop out.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with your mortality?

#30

Post by anonymouse71 »

xupybd wrote: post #23

I'm Christian and have very deep beliefs in life after this. They bring some comfort to me on this topic. However in reading your words I suspect such a belief would not bring much comfort. I think you may have some anxiety issues that could be worth addressing. Regardless of your personal beliefs there is next to nothing you can do to preserve this life beyond the brief existence you're currently enjoying. That's a…

Thank you. Yeah HN didn’t let me put everything I wrote in the post so I see a lot of people are seeing only the third that made it into the post and not the main parts.

Definitely anxiety. Definitely need to address that regardless. Unlikely that I’ll go back to religion as to me it rings false. Not trying to invalidate anyone else, just have enough experience with my brain to know that I can spend my life believing in a god just to question it at the very end in a very uncomfortable way. Plus, sinners have more fun when they aren’t anxious messes is what I was told by my local satanists :)

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