[CW: Death, Dying, thoughts about suicide] How do you deal with being mortal?
[CW: Death, Dying, thoughts about suicide] How do you deal with being mortal?
Ever since I was a child I was afraid of getting older and dying. It has been in the back of my mind for most of my life.
I had phases were this fear was not really around and then phases where it is the only thing I can think of. Ever since Corona it has gotten worse and worse. It just struck me one day while playing video games with my friends. Suddenly I was like "I WILL die one day. I will not be anymore ... forever. I won't even know that I am not anymore." and I broke down pretty much immediately.
What followed was a phase of everlasting fear and anxiety. It was so bad that I just couldn't fall asleep unless I watched comedy until was physically not able to stay awake. Back then I thought it was a result of the isolation of Corona. Since then I moved back in with my mother (due to different reasons). Everything was fine for a while but now it is back.
I should be happy. I handed in my bachelor's thesis a while back, will soon move out again and have gotten a job in my dream career. I finished my therapy and while I am still not completely over my social anxiety but it is getting better and better. And yet the fear was never as bad. Last night I cowered into a ball under my desk and started crying.
It has gotten to a point were I thought about killing myself to end it. It is the same result either way. I won't remember anything anyway. Even the pain and grief friends and family would feel is only temporary. They too will be gone with everything that made them up one day.
I have no intentions of going through with it but it frightens me that I even think like this.
I don't know were this is coming from. Maybe from the feeling that I am wasting my life, that I am a failure and too far behind peers, that I am too old to have so little but I also know that it's not like I could have done a lot better. Due to circumstances outside of my own control I am were I am right now but I am doing my best to get better. It's just that it takes a lot of time and I fear that it takes too much time. I also lost a good friend recently so this probably plays into it as well.
Is there anyway of changing my way of thinking about death? I know I can't change the fact that I will die but how can I accept it without falling into existential nihilism like I currently am?
Edit: I also already called my therapist but since it's the weekend they won't answer before Monday.
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Depression isn't just feeling nihilistic at times. It's literally the desire for nothing. Nihilists can at least be hedonists and pleasure seekers, but depression robs even that from us. We become almost unfeeling, except for a low droning of despair that's never quite enough to make you do anything but always enough to drown out everything else you might feel.
When depressed, you don't want more. You want nothing.
Depression is a sickness. It's not being sad. It's not feeling bad. It's another abomination that must be destroyed.
I don’t disagree, I just don’t know whether it’s possible.
I don't know, but I'm optimistic about depression. My meds help, and they were made when very little was known about the brain.
Someday, somehow, depression can be cured. I'm sure of it. Just like every disease and just like death.
It doesn’t matter if you think immortality is possible in the future. Your argument that it would be a good thing is unfalsifiable. However, it’s a material reality that you will die and thus it’s best to come to terms with it.
It's a material reality that I must sell my labor for a wage. Should I also come to terms with it?
I don't think so - I think I use material forces to abolish wage labor and change material reality.
Material reality isn't inevitable. That's cynicism.
Fair point, assuming immortality is possible. It is best to try to survive as best you can under capitalism while working for its overthrow. If we are assuming this is an accurate parallel then you should try to extend your life as long as possible and maybe research things you think will bring immortality closer, while finding ways to make death less scary, as you will die.
Absolutely agree!
I also have a separate belief that an accurate enough simulation of myself is actually just another aspect of myself, thus a reasonably accurate simulation of me created 10,000 years after my death is the same as being brought back to life! ...but that's just a cooky thing I personally believe and don't expect other people to agree 😅
Interesting, you’d need a lot of correct variables. There may or may not be randomness that changes the outcome. In my opinion the world is knowable, but mortals can only scratch the surface. There will always be more for collective humanity to learn.
Yeah it would require a lot of forensic heavy lifting from technology I can't even imagine outside of science fiction. Doesn't have to be a perfect simulation either - like, I was in the hospital for a few weeks with a TBI. I lost three weeks of memory that haven't come back even years later. I'm also certain I experienced some personality and personal taste changes as well. I still think I'm the same person, though, and prefer being alive as I am to have died when I was hit by that car. So, an imperfect simulation that's mostly accurate is just fine.
Also, if mortals can only scratch the surface then that's just another motivation to leave that "mortality" behind!
EDIT er uhm okay so this convo has gone so far afield - had fun tho! 😅
If the simulation were accurate it would pretty much have to know everything about the world , and thus be able to simulate everyone else into the future. Without that I don’t think it’s actually “you.” Either way it’s a bit of a ship of Theseus type of situation. Also, how could you give consciousness to a computer, and even so, there is no self so I doubt it would be “you” anyway. Well, this is all hypothetical anyway. It was good talking.