Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MonkeyHead]

I think its too eay for people to forget that death is an inevitable part of life, obviously though the last part. You cant run from it so might as well face up to it.

[Levi]

I think its too eay for people to forget that death is an inevitable part of life, obviously though the last part. You cant run from it so might as well face up to it.

Might as well kill myself now and save me some trouble then eh?

My philosophy is to run as hard and as fast as I can from death.  I might not be able to escape it but I'll do my damnedest trying.

    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[MonkeyHead]

Just as its gonna happen doesnt mean you should make it happen sooner. IMHO better to die with dignity than hooked up to a dozen or so devices extending any suffering.

[GlyphGryph]

Levi, there's also the fact that studies have shown many diseases at various points have a much higher life expectancy if you avoid treatment altogether (and a much lower quality over that time period) - people get them anyways, of course, but that's always seemed counterproductive to me.

[Levi]

Dignity depends on the person.  If someone doesn't like it I don't mind them dying another way, but I personally don't think being kept alive by machines is undignified.


Edit:  I should state I'm all for people being able to choose when they die.  I have no problem with that at all.  Its just that I personally would like to be kept alive as long as possible regardless of how horrible my life is.  I'd rather live in pain and misery than simply cease to exist.

[Miggy]

In my mind, the only actual qualifier you can use to determine whether or not you've lived a good life, is whether or not you go willingly into death. I don't want death to be the final sweet embrace, a long sought after release. I want death to be the worst thing to ever happen to me. That's the only way I can know that what I had before dying was worth anything. I want to cling to life for as long as I am possibly able, to prove that life is worth living.

It doesn't surprise me that a doctor has an easy time accepting death though. In that line of work you are forced to daily confront your own mortality through watching others. If all people had to work through that experience, I think they'd come up with similar mindsets.

[GlyphGryph]

I think its sort of insulting to say that those who aren't afraid of dying, or value other things like happiness more highly the life, are incapable of having lived a good life.

This stubbornness is something I can't understand - like a child who keeps eating his halloween candy long after he's sick and no longer enjoying it, simply because he got it and he can. It seems spiteful - spiteful against the universe, to make yourself suffer, to do so much damage, simply so you can justify to yourself that life was, after all, worth living.

Why would a person who has lived a good life be worried about death? Rather, I would imagine it is the person who hopes for a good life but has not yet managed it that would go down fighting...

[kaijyuu]

You can live an incredible life, but if it's taken away from you early, it's still a tragedy. It's still a loss.

It's not that they're unhappy with their life up to this point (maybe it was incredible and stupendous and all that); it's that they're unhappy they won't be able to achieve the things they had in mind for their future.

Some angst, rage against the heavens, and delusional hope is reasonable I think.

[GlyphGryph]

Tragedies exist, and death often is. But there's such a thing as making the best of a bad situation.

And I don't think delusional hope is reasonable if it prevents taking the minimal, if reasonable, precautions of preparing for the most likely outcome, which people seldom due because they prefer to rely solely on that "delusional hope"

[MonkeyHead]

I really hope that when my time comes I can say that I will be happy with how I lived, and not need to cling on with the unrealistic aim of trying to achieve things unfulfiled to that point.

[Miggy]

This stubbornness is something I can't understand - like a child who keeps eating his halloween candy long after he's sick and no longer enjoying it, simply because he got it and he can. It seems spiteful - spiteful against the universe, to make yourself suffer, to do so much damage, simply so you can justify to yourself that life was, after all, worth living.

This is where our views of life differ. To me, that analogy is not fulfilling and unprecise.

To my most fullest belief, death is the end. There is nothing more. You can't stop eating the halloween candy, get better then keep on going the next day. You either keep on eating the candy, or nothing else. The analogy would be closer, in my mind, if the kid was given the halloween candy with the explicit message: "You will never get any more food apart from this". Why would the kid then ever stop eating his candy? It might get sick of it, but it would never has any choice in the matter. It could either eat the candy or not eat at all.

[GlyphGryph]

I think it would be more akin to "Enjoy the candy as much as you want, but at the end of the night the rest is taken away"

The logical thing to do is to get as much enjoyment from the candy as you can, which probably won't be accomplished by trying to shove it all down your throat as fast possible before you lose any of it.

It's the attitude that how much of what you have is more important than maximizing your enjoyment of it that I find perplexing.

The point of the candy is to enjoy the candy, isn't it? If you're destroying your enjoyment of the candy because else you might lose a couple of pieces at the end, well... again, I just can't understand that.

[Necro910]

The point of the candy is to enjoy the candy, isn't it? If you're destroying your enjoyment of the candy because else you might lose a couple of pieces at the end, well... again, I just can't understand that.

I think it's more of an impulsive thing.

Logic: I am starting to feel sick, I don't want to ruin the experience.

Impulse: OH GOD I ONLY HAVE AN HOUR LEFT TO EAT MY CANDY

[Levi]

For me its not about my enjoyment or concern that I still have so much left to accomplish.  I'm fairly lazy and I know I'm not going to do anything amazing in my life.  I simply like existing.  Not existing seems like the most terrible thing I can think of, and I'm an Atheist so I can't console myself with an afterlife.

It might be considered selfish or narrow minded, but I really don't think its such a bad thing to want to live.  I'm still hoping that before I get cancer, a heart attack or a deadly stroke that they figure out how to copy brains into computers.   

[ToonyMan]

You are fulfilled too easily!  Simply existing in life is so boring.  I have to do something or there's no point in existing.