Do you fear death?

Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum

Help Support Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
N

Nostalgia

Guest
I personally don't. After coming to the realisation that everyone will eventually die anyway, in combination with my terrible state of my life, I have had alot of time to think about the meaning of life and death in much depth and I've come to the conclusion that I don't fear death in the slightest.

At the moment in time, I belive if there was such a thing as heaven or the afterlife, then I would be much better off there then I am right now. And as overly dramatic and suicidal that sounds I geninuely think that at this current state of mind. As a agnostic I'm undecided and unsure to what will happen when I die, I quite frankly don't give religion much thought at all, I do however have one belive and that is reincarnation. I belive that no matter how bad your life is currently, one day you will be reborn a different person in a different life, hopefully a life filled with peace and happiness because every person deserves a good life.

I'm sure the people who lead more fulfilling and eventful lives than me may have a different view. I suspect people who have great lives may fear death because they don't want to leave their great lives to end. As I don't have much in life nor do I expect much out of life, life isn't that important to me. And I don't think about or worry for, the people who would miss me if I was gone because there isn't many people who know me these days, as most people I used to know have forgotten about me and they have moved on with their lives.

I would be interested to hear other people's views on this subject.
 
Mausolos said:
I am a Christian and I belong to a certain Protestant church that makes me sure that I'm going to be saved if I have faith only

That's interesting because I used to be a Christian and I went to Christian primary school where the church was a big influence on the school and our lives.

However when I got depressed and isolated myself away from society I lost my faith in Christianity and for the last two years of my live I've become an agnostic that doesn't know what to belive. I'm looking for a sense of direction and a purpose in life. I know religion isn't the answer for everyone but I guess for a religious person like you it acts a motivator which helps through the sad and depressing times.
 
I think I do, it's just that death might be less frightening than some of the stuff one could experience in life. Other than a slow painful death, that might be the worst, and I do fear that.
 
i dont think i fear death. of course i might say otherwise if i was in a life threatening situation.
 
Death is frightening to me because it is an unknown. No one knows what exactly death consists of until they've experienced it for themselves. There have been reports of a blinding white light and near death experiences...but one never truely knows what happens when death occurs until it happens to themselves...

I fear the unknown.
 
I'm not sure what the difference between fearing death and wanting to live is.

I know that I am me and I want to continue to be me when I wake up the next day assuming I do. If I wasn't me I wouldn't know it by any other way then knowing that I am me and not a you.

I have more then once made several decisions (whether well thought out, desired, undesired, or any combination of the latter) that were a direct result of realizing that the action i was about to made could lead to me death and chose it anyway... I suppose a choosing of fight over flight regardless of the outcome.

Suffice to say I want to live and I fear death. I fear the pain, I fear the possible epinephrine response in my brain, and I feel all the emotions that could come with it. I fear no longer being the person that I am. I fear losing this current view of the world. I fear my existance being utterly meaningless in a sea of memmories that will some day be forgotten. I fear the people I know will miss me missing me while the people I would like to miss me not even knowing I was no more. I fear the moment comming and like a child not wanting to go to bed, being unready and unwanting of it's outcome...

To not be me, to not think, to not feel, to not want, to not know what it is to want or think or feel, to not know fear, to not know the concept of fear.

What I welcome, is the inevitable. What I smile to myself in quite solitude is the comfort in knowing I won't be remembered. I will be forgotten. I won't know what it means to be remembered and if it's bad or good to be forgotten. I welcome the bitter end to the sweetness of life, in all it's utterly sadistic tortured beauty and infinite eternal nature. What I welcome is a gradual process that knows nothing of beggenings and ends and serves as undying memmory that nobody will ever know about, but will still exist for the only reason it can't.

I want to be me! And sometimes that results in fear. Sometimes I don't want to be me and that sometimes also leads to fear.

Is being afraid to die from falling to your death good or bad? Well if you don't want to die from falling from a high place then that is good. If you want to work as a high rise window washer it's bad.

If you want to die in your sleep, feel no pain, and form no conscious thought process of manifestation of realization of impending death... sleep ALOT...

If you want to be remembered do BIG... if you want to be forgotten be small... If you want to be missed, love others. If you want to be hated, love only yourself.

If you want your funeral to involve clowns, disco music, a techno lazer show, and fireworks... be rich and have a will.

If you want to enjoy your life as much as possible, be the best person you can, and think as little about all of the above as possible, while still taking a small bit of time out of each day to remember each day could be your last. Don't assume any day is your last, but remember it "could" be, and it doesn't have to mean anything at all.

Life is likened to an iceberg that breaks free from a larger mass. A piece of water floating in a sea of water. Some of it is visible from above the sea, but most of it is visible in the sea. Then after time it can no longer be seen at all, but it is still water.
 
No and I have never. It's only your current body that ceases to function. I do have some notions about what happens ín-between the lifetimes though I'm not entirely certain. Reincarnation, however, Im certain about. What I do fear, however vain that may sound, is aging. Current human lifespan is awfully short and the young years are even more pathetically shorter. I know many people tend to find the positive sides of old age but most are really just trying to convince themselves that it's not so bad. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do that, any way to cheer yourself up that works instead of being sulky is good. Truth is, however, that at the end of the day, no one would choose to be old, weak and wrinkled if they had a choice. Not to mention that your chances to stay lonely if you have no friends or haven't found 'the one' are increasing with every passing year. Sorry, got sidetracked, I do that a lot.
 
Death is nothing big or scary. Why fear something just because it's an unknown? lol so many people lose sleep over it because it's the "Final Mystery," etc etc... but is it really that big a deal?

If you fear the unknown, then you're never going to experience much of what this life has to offer. You're always going to be cringing down in your "safe zone," never able to venture very far out to those really exotic, amazing things that life has to offer.

Maybe I'll feel different when I'm older, but right now, I'm not too concerned about it. I'd be fine with dying today, because I'm at peace with what I've done with my life thus far and with who I am. *shrug*

Just my two pfennigs.
 
Good point Badjedidude.

Just because something's unknown doesn't mean you should fear it nor should you welcome it.

The unknown is the unknown and you should realise that everyone will step in the unknown when they die.

For the religious and the non-religious - everyone must think at some point in lives about what happens after you die. I personally think that something must happen after you die whether that be heaven or reincarnation, I think the journey of life doesn't end when you die.
 
edgecrusher said:
i dont think i fear death. of course i might say otherwise if i was in a life threatening situation.

Yeah, i don't think that i do. Just fear certain ways of going out.

If i was looking it in the eyeball, who knows, maybe i would have a different feeling about it.
 
I was brought up Catholic and I used to be a believer, now that I am more mature I am not religious at all but I consider myself highly spiritual. When we are alive our manifestation is physical and when we die the energy once reciding there leaves to take up another form (reincarnation) "Energy is never created nor destroyed only transformed" About your question I do not fear death itself. The thought of my body suffering while ceasing to exist is what makes me uncomfortable.
 
Nostalgia said:
For the religious and the non-religious - everyone must think at some point in lives about what happens after you die. I personally think that something must happen after you die whether that be heaven or reincarnation, I think the journey of life doesn't end when you die.

I agree. I've always had a personal way of saying that. "Death is a Doorway." Nothing more, nothing less. I don't really have proof that there's anything after death, but somehow that theory just feels correct. *shrug*

Belief in an "afterlife" doesn't have to be religious in nature. It's entirely possible that our "soul energy" continues on, once released from our physical shells. After all, scientists admit that we have yet to discover or classify a good 98% or so of the matter in the universe. Some of that could definitely be the continuation of our being after we die. *shrug*

Anyway, I still don't see death as something to fear.
 
I have kind of double feelings when it comes to death.

First of all, I don't believe in afterlife, so to me it actually means end of my existence. I get a little wary when thinking that I will stop existing and there will be little or no trace of me left. Also, the pain of death is alarming as well.

But on the other hand, I realize that we are all just little insignificant beings on a vast scale. Our 80 year or so existence doesn't have much impact outside our very little world that we live in. So I tend to comfort myself by saying that all of us actually have little significance in the universe, and we live relatively short time. Therefore our life should be savoured, lived for our personal enjoyment without thinking too much about death.

So my motto would be: 'Live life for yourself, because it won't change anything significant. Don't think too much about death, because it will come anyway.'
 
Every time I see this thread, I'm reminded of Pirates of the Caribbean, and how Davy Jones always runs around asking everyone, "Do You Feaah Deaath?"

:p
 
I have fluctuated from one end to the other many times. In that past I would change my mind on whether or not I feared death multiple times in just one week. Never really understand the why of it all. With this issue logically I will think one way, but I will emotionally feel the opposite at times.

A couple years back, when I was still in college, I lived in an apartment by myself. I was alone back then like I am now. I wouldn't ever really talk to anyone except during class or work. One night I was eating some spicy food, and I was eating it a little too fast. A tiny bit went down the wrong pipe and I started to cough pretty hard. The coughing caused me to inhaled suddenly and it sucked the food down my throat and I started choking. At first I thought it was no big deal, so I tried to cough it back up and when that didnt work maybe I could try just swallowing it enough so I could breaht, but at some point I just accepted that this is probably how I was going to die. I was surprised that I wasn't scared, because I always thought I would be. Even when I felt like I wasn't afraid of death, I kept thinking that when the moment came I would be afraid anyway.

By the time I gave up trying I was on the floor on my hands and knees thinking to myself, "So this is hows it ends." It kind of felt peaceful. My biggest concern by that point was that I wish I could stop choking for 20 minutes and maybe clean up my apartment so I wouldn't look like such a slob. I laughed to myself at such a pathetic thought, considering the circumstances. I tried one last time to cough up the food, but I still couldn't. so I just laid down and closed my eyes. I was surprised at how peaceful it was, and how well I was accepting it. Luckily at the last second I involuntarily vomited and the food finally came out.

What I took away from that experience the most is to just accept the inevitable. I still sometimes get freaked out by death for no apparent reason, but not as much as I used to. I can't change it, so I try not to fight it or fear it if I can help it.
 
It's easy to say you don't fear death sitting in a comfortable environment where the likelihood of death is VERY low, no one is scared of something that has an insanely low chance of happening.
Though when in a situation where death is highly likely to occur I'm sure you will all honeysuckle bricks...its our natural survival instincts.

However, if you are talking about fearing the inevitable, fearing what will happen after you die, then no. no one should fear that. No matter what happens after you die, no matter what you think will happen, It doesn't matter. Why worry about something we have no control over?
 
Nostalgia said:
I personally don't. I've come to the conclusion that I don't fear death in the slightest.

having actually died once myself. i can say, yeah, it's just a little scary. trust me when your time comes, you'll be shitting bricks.
 
i absolutely don't fear death, but there are a few things that i want to share and point out here. i pretty much have the same feelings as you. i ask myself if anyone would miss me when i died, or if anyone would even notice i was gone. i grew up in a pentecostal family, and even though i don't attend church or read my bible, i still believe and try my best to live the christian lifestyle. living it is hard work though. even the bible says so. a lot of people think that christians have it easy, but we have it the hardest. i think when i die, i'll go to heaven because of the sacrifice that jesus made to save us from damnation. even though i have these strong "religious" beliefs and background, i still have my own personal views that seem to take priority over what the bible says.

i don't fear death. i often ask for it to come and get me. i often have suicidal thoughts and wish i could go through with them. the lyric by tupac puts it best; "i wake up in the morning and i ask myself, is life worth living or should i blast myself?". it's a good thing i don't own a gun though, or have access to poisons, or live in a city with big buildings. i just don't want to go out like a little punk, for lack of more profane and descriptive words. i don't want to die in a car accident, or be struck by lightning, or be mugged by some "ese" and then shot in the face. that's not how i want to die. i want to die for God, for my beliefs. there's gonna be a day when christians are going to be persecuted, and i'm waiting for that day so i can die for my beliefs. call me an extremist, but that's just what i want. i really hope to live to see that day.

this life means nothing. we're here for 70-80 earth years, and then you die. i really don't get why my God would put us through this. i guess we'll learn once we make it to the other side, the other side where we'll live forever.
 
Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

Epicurus, 341 - 271 BC


Sure, this statement is valid only for agnostics as myself. But still, it is hardly arguable that something remains in memories of our friends and relatives as we pass away, so as long as we are not devoid of ones, let's appreciate it.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top