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‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

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Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#41

Post by flangola7 »

brianjking wrote: post #2

This article seems like something I should read, but I'm not sure if I want to. As someone with parents and inlaws who are in their early to mid 70s and quite worried about losing them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read this. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?

I recently learned I have - at best - 2 years to live. Prognosis is fatal in 100% of cases, no known cure and only weak compensatory treatments of any kind.

I'm in my 30s. Not religious either so I don't have the comfort of expecting an afterlife.

I've been through a lot of hard things but I was always taught how to be resourceful and make it through hard times to the other side. No one teaches you how to die. There is no other side to make it to.

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#42

Post by echelon »

phoe-krk wrote: post #32
melling wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It’s simply a matter of the human race deciding…” You misread what I said. I never said it was a simple problem, I said it was simply a matter of deciding to solve the problem. The Apollo program, for comparison, took 400,000 people a decade to get to the moon, and 2.5% of GDP. https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program If we agree the problem will be solved, t…

No, you misread what I said. "Simply a matter of deciding to solve the problem" is not "simple" by any means. There's no political incentive to solve cancer since isn't a problem that brings political advantage when solved, like there's no political "race to the moon" with a rival country that happened with Apollo. Race to the moon decided because USA and USSR went into a game of who gets there first; cancer has no s…

You're lasering in on the word "simple".

Human civilization is full of optimization gradients. We choose to spend our time and money on certain pathways.

OP was musing that amid all the things we spend money and effort on, cancer seems to get too little. If only we could choose to "simply" devote more of our collective energies to it. It's a mere musing, nothing more. We're kind of powerless to these forces of how people choose to spend their lives.

Solving cancer itself is by no means "simple". But neither were a lot of the things we've accomplished. We'll get there in time, but it's easy for the brain to imagine a faster path if we had more institutional funding and minds on the task. That's what's simple.

You're correct that we won't get people on board with this. We don't consider the recruitment of support or the opportunity cost losses or the myriad of other changes necessary. But this is all just an intellectual exercise in wishful thinking anyway.

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#43

Post by CrazyPyroLinux »

cinntaile wrote: post #35
walkhour wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nevertheless the percentage of priests abusing children is lower than the percentage of school teachers doing the same. Make sure to bring that up every time you talk about the public school system.

> And nevertheless the percentage of priests abusing children is lower than the percentage of school children doing the same. Are you sure this is what you mean?

Probably referring to teachers.

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#44

Post by anonuser123456 »

brianjking wrote: post #2

This article seems like something I should read, but I'm not sure if I want to. As someone with parents and inlaws who are in their early to mid 70s and quite worried about losing them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read this. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?

Deeply accepting the Mr. Peanutbutter philosophy of life brought me a deep sense of internal calm about issues like this.

https://youtu.be/AfqTOhi7AnQ

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#45

Post by robocat »

melling wrote: post #9

“30 years ago I would have died of cancer; now I will die with cancer, but not of cancer.” And 30-100 years from now, the same cancer will be cured. It’s simply a matter of the human race deciding when to cure cancers.

Simply?

Cancer is because cells do not copy their data exactly - sometimes because the copying process is imperfect and introduces faults, and sometimes because viruses introduce faults.

There is a stupidly large number of different copying faults, so there is a stupidly large number of possible types of cancer. Cancer is entirely dissimilar to many other diseases of the body.

To cure cancer requires either preventing all copying faults, or detecting all copying faults and fixing them. This is hard - essentially requires completely replacing the normal cell splitting process, and/or the DNA checking process.

Removing viruses from our environment would help reduce some cancer problems.

Also note, old age is in large part due to telomere shortening: that is a process evolved to help fight against cancer growth (many cancerous cells reproduce and are then killed by apoptosis due to reaching a fixed number of cell reproductions).

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#46

Post by prettyeyes83 »

brianjking wrote: post #2

This article seems like something I should read, but I'm not sure if I want to. As someone with parents and inlaws who are in their early to mid 70s and quite worried about losing them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read this. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?

two thoughts i try to hold on to, when my pre-loss anxiety takes over:

1) it's worse worse when parents have to bury their children (than vice versa). 2) there is sadness to having to say goodbye, but sadness is a beautiful thing. it is a different way to celebrate the love you had.

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#47

Post by theusus »

Seneca - "Make a goal to have already lived enough"

I emphasise, and so some degree agree with the takes of the doctor.

Being sick with some threating disease and then live with it for years or till death is painfull. We should be given a chance to cut it off.

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#48

Post by RHSman2 »

brianjking wrote: post #2

This article seems like something I should read, but I'm not sure if I want to. As someone with parents and inlaws who are in their early to mid 70s and quite worried about losing them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read this. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?

Share meaningful times and emotions with the people that are close to you. I don’t think this is something that should be done because people will depart, more because it improves connection with people and helps you become a much more available person.

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#49

Post by livelielife »

brianjking wrote: post #2

This article seems like something I should read, but I'm not sure if I want to. As someone with parents and inlaws who are in their early to mid 70s and quite worried about losing them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read this. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?

be thankful for what you've already had, remember it, cherish it?

Re: ‘Preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life’

#50

Post by nine_zeros »

walterbell wrote: post #6
brianjking wrote: post #2

This article seems like something I should read, but I'm not sure if I want to. As someone with parents and inlaws who are in their early to mid 70s and quite worried about losing them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to read this. Does anyone have any tips on how to deal with the pre-loss anxiety?

Short (25m) wordless art film, https://nbhap.com/sounds/the-national-mike-mills-i-am-easy-t... > We are born, we live and then we all die. And in-between a lot of spectacular things can happen. Or maybe not. Sounds harsh when you put it like this, right? But there’s an undeniable and for many people uncomfortable truth in this and I Am Easy To Find is a film that transports that feeling pretty well.

Beautiful video.
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