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The nicest bit for me was where he talked about growing old being a privilege and not to lament every grey hair and wrinkle. Puts it in perspective.
As I often say, "Growing old sucks, but it is better than the alternative."* *I can't take credit. I got it from someone else, but I don't remember who.
But it is _so_ incredibly liberating to meet it with a warm smile and acceptance.
Age is not a punishment, it's a gift, a privilege, to carry the memories we have and to wear our lives on our face like we're able to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I often say, "Growing old sucks, but it is better than the alternative."* *I can't take credit. I got it from someone else, but I don't remember who.
I’ve heard it ascribed to Oscar Wilde, although according to Whistler he probably stole it from someone himself.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So true. Even in the best case scenario if they manage to revive you perpetually, the universe will eventually end and then you'll be there to experience it... For someone who is afraid of dying, I can't think of a worse way to go. To an atheist, uncertainty is the source of all hope.
>To an atheist, uncertainty is the source of all hope. Isn't that somewhat backward? To an atheist, the certainty that they won't be going to an afterlife seems to be a source of hope, and for the religious person, the idea that they might is the same.
When you think that your consciousness is special, irreplaceable and irreproducible, death becomes a lot more frightening.
On the other hand, if you believe, based on empirical evidence, that your consciousness can be manufactured out of a piece of meat with some chemicals and electricity as the result of a totally random natural process (evolution), that gives a lot of hope.
but then i thought: every moment in your life can be valued according to how much life you have ahead of it. the present moment is the most valuable; and the very last moment, the least -- you have nothing ahead of it. i thought: if you live your life such that the last moment, which is the least valuable in that sense, is as good as possible -- perhaps that would improve the totality of the rest of your life.
this has all been covered by the buddhist concepts on this thread but i thought it was interesting that we can come to this same idea somewhat independently. (maybe rawls was inspired by buddhism? i don't know.)
“All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise and will become separated from me”— Siddhartha Gautama. As a Buddhist we do “contemplation of death” meditation on a regular basis. It involves imagining our last few hours on our deathbed. It is a wonderful exercise to help put things in context. It makes you behave differently towards people you meet, even strangers.
It makes me incredibly sad, and, at the same time it helps me to make better decisions in life. Choosing spending time with him instead of surfing the web for no reason for example.
"Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish, foolish, and short-sighted — in a word, are big children all their lives, something intermediate between the child and the man, who is a man in the strict sense of the word." -- Arthur Schopenhauer
Being more straightforward about your criticism would be fair.