Printable View
What is your philosophy about death ?
Does knowing that we will all die .. make it any easy ?
Why is it harder on those who are alive , more painful to us then those who died? They gone .. simply but we suffer their lose.
Death comes all at sudden and takes people away, It's everyone's destiny yea .. but the fact is it not yet accepted by many of us.
Death is hard on the living because its the living that must live with death. However, the meaning of death vary's greatly from individual to individual and from culture to culture. While we all have our beliefs regarding death we do not know what death brings. Perhaps we carry our souls with us. Perhaps we don't. However, in my opinion the best way to deal with death is to honour the lives of those who have passed on. Pass on the messages they carried, and nurture their memories.
I agree that death is not accepted by many of us. I think it is because we are so often taught to avoid it or simply not taught about it at all. Human seem to have a natural fear to things they do not understand and death is one thing we do not understand that we can't also conquer.
Knowing that death is unavoidable doesn't make anything easy and it's not supposed to. We get used to having certain people around us, one day they are gone forever, and we have to slowly adapt to their absence. The passing of time is the only means to help you get used to the new situation. Eventually, you will have to let them go and continue with your life without them and it's not supposed to be easy. It's the way life and death work together, the eternal inevitable cycle between the two, and there's not much that we can do about it. I suggest not to swallow the pain and let it out in some form. All need to cry mustn't be contained.
Death is nothing to us, because when we are dead we do not feel, or if there is an afterlife we know nothing about it; and it's foolish to worry about something that can never be known about.
(Actually I don't think there will be any afterlife for anything recognisable as "me"...)
So my position about death is basically that of Epicurus... look it up read about it, it's the cure for the fear of death.
Proof? ... I don't fear death.
Because my own death is nothing to me, nothing to fear, I don't fear or get upset at the death of others.
To say "the living must live with death" is an obvious fallacy, typical of the fallacies that go around and that lead to us to worry about death - they make us think it is something in life, when (by definition!) it isn't.
To not accept the fact of death is an act of idiocy, a denial of the obvious. So accept it!
Get used to the fact that anyone around you can die at any time, then you will have no need to adapt to their absence. See that having certain people around is not one of life's essentials.... only food and shelter is really essential. Don't let anything disturb your tranquility, especially the presence or non-presence of such wayward things as other human beings.
Another myth: "Eventually, you will have to let them go and continue with your life without them and it's not supposed to be easy." You only think it's hard because you've been watching too many sentimental Hollywood movies. Of course it's not meant to be hard! Who set it to be hard? It's not meant to be anything... so choose it to be easy. Read some real philosophy... start with Seneca's letters.
Based on near and shared death experiences, I don't think it is possible for us to completely die even though our bodies die. Based on accounts of reincarnation, I don't think this is the only time we have been associated with a body. I don't know much more about it than that, however, I draw the following conclusions:
1) Suicide is not a solution to most problems it is used to solve since there is no guarantee it will completely work.
2) I am not convinced that any attempts to meditate one's way into nirvana so that one does not get reincarnated again work any more than traditional suicide.
3) Since we are alive, assuming life is good and worth paying attention to should be the default position.
I agree that honoring the death .. can make us feel better about it & accept ...but as you said yet its not accepted to many of us !Quote:
Originally Posted by Ingestion
Max! We try to get busy in life in order to forget.. but everything around us reminds of those whom we lost ...especially when good occasions and celebrations get close.. you just wonder " Where are they ?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximilianus
I guess life goes on ... and everyone is different in dealing with the loss.. Some are stronger and some good at just ignoring & moving on.. People varies . And this is one advantage I can say for those who can easily forget & go on...
Well.. its good to not fear death.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
But the question that everyone asks .. is What happens when I leave ?
For people like me who believes in a life after death.. it matters.. It doesn't mean I fear death... but I need to be ready for that moment
coz simply I don't think we live aimlessly .
And yes .. I do accept the fact of death.. But the fact of not seeing that person again .. is a bit hard for all of us.
Yes we eventually will die .. I agree !
Strange !Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
.. We die.. but we get into life again ... a life after life.
but the life hearafter is lasting one.. where we get to either go heaven or hell.
Its said that when the people are in grave .. they can still hear us & fell us when we visit them at the graveyard.
True, a person already dead doesn't feel anything. But a person in the process of getting killed or knows that death is surely near would most likely feel tremendous, either physical or mental, pain. Say a guy gets shot in the head, that bullet would inflict much pain if for a slight second, in effect, that person did feel his life culminating. Other examples would vary in terms of dying in pain...drowning, starvation, aids etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
When you're alive and healthy it's easier to say that you don't fear death, but you disregard the negative factors that come with it (loss of life and everything with it: relatives, memories, sensations).
I think there's a duality towards death. People accept it in a way because it's part of the life process, but accepting it when you're in that fatal state is another story.
I don't think you have had much experience with the elderly dying. They adapt very well and they might require pain killers depending on the affliction. But they die in acceptance, serene, and waiting for it. Of course there are a few mentally ill that raise a lot of hell. But they are very few.Quote:
Originally Posted by FROADS
Why would this person feel severe mental pain? If he has accepted Epicurus than he has nothing to fear, so nothing to cause mental pain.Quote:
Originally Posted by FROADS
If you have experienced any physical pain (headache, toothache...) then wasn't it bearable? Nothing really to fear. Epicurus died from kidney stones, one of the most painful deaths there is, by most accounts, yet he remained happy throughout the dying process.
After death you aren't there, so how can you lose anything? Before death you have all these things. So you don't lose anything, full stop.Quote:
When you're alive and healthy it's easier to say that you don't fear death, but you disregard the negative factors that come with it (loss of life and everything with it: relatives, memories, sensations).
Some philosophical literature on death:
Plato - "Dialogues" - worth reading a complete collection, but the first few (Apology, Crito, Phaedo) are especially good on this particular topic as Socrates is actually facing death in them.
Seneca - "Letters" - Epicurus plays a starring role
Epicurus - complete works (unfortunately just a hundred pages or so, the Christians burned the rest because they couldn't stand the competition :))
Hamlet - Shakespeare is very good on this topic, eg:
"There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be."
Montaigne - Essays
Rationalising it, unfortunately, does not eliminate either mental of physical pain unless one is trained to do this. I wonder if you've met anyone with kidney stones or gallstones? Perhaps telling them would take away the pain.Quote:
Originally Posted by mal4mac
I don't think anyone is arguing that physical pain can be eliminated, but I think a philosophical approach might be a good way of "dealing with it". I think it's helped me with some minor pains, I await the bigger test though! The ancients all say that extensive training is required, you can't just read the Wikipedia page on Seneca, and that's job done. Montaigne also suffered from kidney stones, and gives an extensive account of his approach to coping with them:Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl3...-essays-8.html
A more recent famous philosopher who really got into stoicism and "the philosophy of death", near his untimely and painful end, was Michael Foucault, his "Hermeneutics of the Subject" is a good read.
I think you're depicting death as this poetic part of nature that harmonizes with the cycle of life and that we as humans should accept it quietly. The thing about it is that most people don't live up to 90 and die in their sleep silently, most times death comes in violently and unexpected. Can you be prepared for something that's fortuitous? Nope. And if you happen to survive a brush with death, let me tell u, it's nothing poetic. It's traumatizing, at times painful if you're injured, but it does make you cherish life more. I know by experience when I was involved in a car accident a couple of years ago...I feared death then and I fear death now. That's why I minimize the risks in order to prolong my life. But when my times comes, it comes. And i can't do nothing about it. So in a way, like i said, I accept it as a part of life but I still fear it because it might take me while I'm still young, feel me.
Death is final result in which those who are evaluated how much she or he weight their live in the way value and not value.
death is part of the deal ie without it there is no life.
why worry death when life is more pressing because whilst death does not dwell everything else does.