What is your tack on MORTALITY?

To what degree have you come to terms with it?

and pulling me away from my self-imposed ignorant bliss :-(

they let you lie down, for a long, long time.

I can stay in that ignorant bliss zone for weeks at a time, but the thought always eventually invades my mind...but it does spur me to do more with my time, whether something useful or pleasureable.

When I was a kid, adults always told me that "this was the greatest time of my life, and to enjoy it", and of course I didn't get it. I'd love to have a child's inability to "get" death, or even a religious person's conviction that it is only a transition. Unfortunately, I've been a pretty much hardwired atheist since my teens. It just seems to obvious to me. (Not that I don't think that there is an organizing principle to the universe - I'm sure that my "life essence" will be reabsorbed into that - It's just that "Me" will no longer be. Bummer.)

but I've always been reticent to admit it. At DU I have 'met' a lot of other atheists and at least I don't have to feel so damn freakish.

But check this: after surgery last year I had an epiphany of sorts. Before I was anaesthetized the surgeon told me that this was way deeper than sleep--that the time would pass in the blink of any eye. He was right. They put the thing over my mouth, and literally the next moment I was coming to in the recovery room, 4 hours later.

If death is 'the deepest sleep'--even if it takes uncountable trillions of years and consciousness is the only possible form of experience--then half of me believes that I will simply pop into another life form. If death is truly eternal there seems to be no logical basis in life being even possible.

The other half says it's just wishful thinking.

I've been under for a quadruple wisdom tooth removal - it was just like that - feels like you've been out only for the blink of an eye.

I don't discount any possibilities - But I'm pretty sure that most human-concocted religions are way off, and that whatever the truth of the universe is, and any intelligent force that may have created it - is way beyond foolish human's ability to comprehend...

...Or die trying."
--Villa, Blake's 7

(Anyone else remember that?)

I thought you said morality. :crazy:

Alternate response: "mortality is dead on."

It's the dying part that I'm not looking forward to. It's not like I'm going to "miss" existing, so when I go, I just want it to be quick and catch me by surprise.

I want to go in my sleep like my grandpa...
Not kicking and screaming like the passengers in the backseat.

I don't fear it but do hope when the time comes I'll go quickly.

Ugh.

Why would one even want to visit DU on one's birthday anyhow? Get out there and have some fun, you!

That's why I'm online.

It's a beautiful day today, too. I might have to bail out early.

On edit: D'oh! Where are my manners? I forgot to say "Thank you"! :)

ages inside a star, who knows how long floating about out in the chilly nothingness, coming together, playing the whole plant game... and FINALLY all the pieces come together and I can write my name.

I can say, "hey! All that waiting was worth it because it's really cool to-"

And then I die.

I hate mortality.

is the result of the confluence of random factors at the time of your conception. If that is the case then given infinite time in infinite space that random combination will come together again and your unique consciousness will happen again and again. It's mathematically inevitable.

On the other hand, Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia School of Medicine has collected some very convincing evidence that reincarnation is a fact. His evidence doesn't really mean all that much to me, however, since I've known about the fact of reincarnation from the time I was a baby laying in my crib looking up at my hands and thinking to myself "How strange it is to be small again."

What if you don't believe in reincarnation? Don't worry, you'll probably figure it out in some future lifetime.

but I like it :-)