Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

bessstillman.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–227 of 227 posts

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#221

Post by squigz »

catigula wrote: post #220
squigz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure why you think I don't already try to live a "good" life. To me, and most atheists I've discussed this with, death is not an "abyssal, terrifying maw" - it is simply the natural conclusion to life of any kind. It does not 'scare' me; it inspires me to live a good life, to help others, to die with the knowledge that I hopefully made the world a slightly better place.

You're saying the words but I suspect you haven't interrogated them. Again, I'm not sharing my speculation, I'm sharing my actual experience and conclusions as an atheist. Anyways, it doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere with our dialogue, cheers. Also I want to point out that it's clear that you don't practice what I outlined or you wouldn't have mocked the belief of religious people as "a magical place in the s…

> Again, I'm not sharing my speculation, I'm sharing my actual experience and conclusions as an atheist.

As am I, which you seem to refuse to believe for some reason.

> Also I want to point out that it's clear that you don't practice what I outlined or you wouldn't have mocked the belief of religious people as "a magical place in the sky", hence cargo cult morality. It looks like morality to you, it may even feel like morality, but it demonstrably isn't. You haven't inconvenienced yourself at all, you merely did what felt good.

Just because one does not live a perfectly moral life 100% of the time does not mean they are not moral. As you said, "You won't be perfect, but don't let that discourage you."

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#222

Post by pbrum »

throwaway392405 wrote: post #35

I'm pretty sure my dad has chronic grief. My mom passed away from cancer when I was 11. I didn't know how unusual their marriage was until I saw others' marriages. It became particularly clear when I started dating and got married myself. They never fought at all. There was zero conflict. It wasn't that they just "hid it from the kids"—there was simply nothing to fight about. They were truly each other's very best fr…

I found your comment very moving. Thank you for sharing that remarkable portrait of your father

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#223

Post by weregiraffe »

catigula wrote: post #202
weregiraffe wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, only an imaginary friend can deal with death. /s

It's is immensely epistemically arrogant to so confidently opine on this topic when every single day you experience consciousness, which is impossible to explain at all using Physics and likely simply impossible to ever explain within that framework (Edward Witten, the greatest living Physicist, shares this belief).

>It's is immensely epistemically arrogant to so confidently opine on this topic when every single day you experience consciousness, which is impossible to explain at all using Physics and likely simply impossible to ever explain within that framework (Edward Witten, the greatest living Physicist, shares this belief).

Look, you asked for it by setting up secularism as the problem. The opposite of secularism is commonly understood to be religion, and religion is self-delusion. The fact that you can't explain consciousness via a materialistic framework, doesn't mean you have to invent an imaginary friend to explain it. It's like saying that since you can't fly an airplane to the Moon, you should take a train (with no wheels).

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#224

Post by weregiraffe »

catigula wrote: post #216
squigz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also extraordinarily arrogant - and rude - to state that atheists cannot deal with death. Certainly they face it with far more bravery than, say, someone who believes people don't actually die but instead go to a magical place in the sky.

1. You've made the mistake of assuming I'm religious. I am not. This is my lived experience. 2. I think that, largely, materialism is a system that isn't merely arrogant (which it clearly is, as outlined above), but also unfulfilling. You can simply ignore the concept of death but if you choose to really wrestle/engage with it in a materialist framework you will see yourself staring into an abyssal, terrifying maw. I…

>Take all of the core precepts of what most religions might propose as being 'good' - there is variance but that's alright, humans disagree in every domain on everything - and apply them to your life.

A sum of a thousand imaginary friends is still imaginary.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#225

Post by weregiraffe »

jongjong wrote: post #194

I sometimes get jealous of bad people. Bad people tend to surround themselves with other bad people. So when their 'close ones' die, they probably don't feel much grief... And they probably inherit more money because bad people have more money. It's like how some criminals describe feeling a sense of relief once they got caught. Some part of them is glad that they get punished. Being a bad person is a win-win in this…

> if you get caught, you can at least rejoice in knowing that there is justice in the world.

No, it doesn't work like this.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#226

Post by moioci »

thijson wrote: post #217
randycupertino wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still randomly gmail my dear beloved best friend who died of melanoma 18 years ago. It goes into the ether. I hope gmail doesn't reassign his account to someone else for inactivity, they will get my "thinking of you, miss you, this thing happened that you would have found hilarious" emails.

I heard about people that would keep the voice mail of a departed loved one on their phone undeleted. They would replay it from time to time to get the feeling that they are still there. Also they would wear their clothes to feel their presence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_i59j74g3s

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#227

Post by bonoboTP »

aeturnum wrote: post #17

> We medicalize grief because we fear it. I think this is just incorrect. You are not obligated to seek treatment for most medical problems[1]. The point of medicalizing something is to draw a line between situations where it would be too soon for medical professionals to step in and when people enter a situation where they may need external help. One of the diagnostic criteria, which this article mentions, is that y…

A piece of paper from a medical professional stating that you have some medical need is extremely powerful against the cold machine of corporate and state bureaucracy. You may want to handle grief through general compassion or something but lawyers and managers don't run on that fuel, but medical documents work on them like garlic on Dracula. That's just how it is.
Post reply on HN