/lit/ - Literature

>>19755002
> being in one same condition forever is terrifying.
You are implying the existence of self while also implying the death of your self.
Why would something that doesn't exist be afraid of eternally not existing?

> Hell
Is merely a motivator for people to act morally without secular morals. We cannot possibly know what is after death.

>>19754907
> But it is a given that I know I'm setting out from A to get to B
Yes, again, only exists in present moment. The next moment, this "given" might simply no longer be that, a "given".

> No, I mean if I were never to see the moon again I would still know the experience of it.
That knowledge is only present in THIS moment in time. If moon is a metaphor for experience,
[If I were never to experience something again I would still know the experience of that something]
I cannot, then, see how simply knowing something exists (<— again we find ourselves taking about the present moment only) guaranties it's continuance to the moment in the future where we can experience it once again. Simply knowing the experience in the moment, does warrant their anticipation in the future.
Knowledge of the moon does not imply any future experience of it, hence we should not be afraid of loosing that experience. Knowledge of experience is simply a memory from the past. You could invoke it by some eidetic memory into the present moment, but it doesn't relate in any way to the future.

> I can rationalize all I want, I still have fear in me as I currently am. It is instinctive...
>>19754922
> I would like to add is that your thoughts come from the instinctive apprehension of death. You rationalize it because your animal brain needs to...
Well then, the whole question becomes "how do we overcome our instincts", to which all will answer "we can't. Maybe only to a degree."
If it's the instinctive apprehension of death we are trying to eliminate, our monkey brain is what prohibits us from doing so. Another reason to conclude that there isn't a reason to be afraid of death. After all, when you die, you die as a rational being and so being a rational being you can invoke all these musings we've been talking about and finally die, while telling your monkey brain "hush", without any worry.

>>19754848
Well, anon, don't we find ourselves in a very amusing predicament.

— If we agree on that it's the veneration for your ego that causes the worry and so we need only to keep our notion of self in check;
— If we agree on that the worries of loss exist only because of our grabbing onto them from the future, which we don't have;

> They are a given as long I exist
They cannot be. At least not in the meaning you convey in that sentence. If you are walking from point A to point B, it is not given that you will reach you destination, there is a chance you'll die on your way. Same login applies to experiences.
> ...or at least the knowledge of those experiences...
We cannot have knowledge of future events. So we do not actually have it.

— And if we agree on that we are merely animals;

—— Then why should one worry about death as if it is some grinder for "us, the divine beings granted by benevolent god the gift of consciousness"?

>>19754743
I know you weren't responding to me, but this post only confirms what I've stated before. You attribute too much importance to your ego. And because of that you give too much importance to your experiences of self and the world.

You indicated that it's the loss of experiences that you are afraid of:
> The experience, or lack of it, of being under is easy but the prospect of never coming up again is not. No more words or thoughts. To never see a sight again, to never smell or hear. Never a taste or a touch again. No more wind, no more sky.
You are afraid of dying because you are afraid to never experience these in the future, meaning, you anticipate them, almost as a given.
>>19752800
>I think you believe you were predestined to experience that something


Let's try it like this:
Why are you afraid of being no more?
> Because in me there is a wish to continue.
Why?
> Because I am afraid to never again experience the world.
Why are you afraid of no more being able to experience a world? (this is the question you don't seem to ask yourself.)
> No more (words, thoughts, feelings, no more experience)
All of these are exist in present time only. You are grabbing and holding onto these abstracts from another abstract thought of future. But the future does not exist for a human being, we can only and ONLY experience present moment. There exists no time where these experiences you describe exist. You are afraid of loosing something you don't even have.You wish for them to exist, but there is no certainty you'll ever get them. You're afraid of death because you feel entitled to existence. Death to you is not letting go of your present self, but also of that which you think you have IN THE FUTURE. And as I've said it is something you simply don't have at all.


>>19754797
> The experience I described was a physical reaction and not wholly cerebral
> It is the short bursts where the abstraction disappears and the idea presents itself...
(I don't mean to sound patronizing here) Yes, it's your self-preservation instinct. Again, we are just animals. The ability to think is unlikely to be of some divine nature.

>>19753291
But maybe I'm looking at it from a too human of a perspective.
In any way it's from this nihilism I find my mind inclined to the pragmatism of ideas. I'll wear them like gloves, as long as they work for me. Life has no innate worth to it, and I am probably not some special consciousness. Why do we think that an ability to observe the world is something special anyway, and not just a result of our evolved nervous system in need of controlling itself? An utmost anthropocentric belief of people too afraid their life doesn't actually mean anything. I am just an animal. Fulfilling the needs of my consciousness is no more out of being "natural" than feeding myself. Just animals frolicing around. Just life trying to continue itself. Why should I give any meaning to death if there is none to life?

>>19752998
Funnily enough I remember these from a meme compilation, but check this one as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

> placed into centrifuges and spun until death; injected with animal blood; exposed to lethal doses of x-rays; subjected to various chemical weapons inside gas chambers; injected with sea water; and burned or buried alive.

> In a video interview, former Unit member Okawa Fukumatsu admitted to having vivisected a pregnant woman.

You could also dismiss this as fiction written by the winners, but the studies of those experiments had found their use afterwards.
And even if everything written there was made up, there is no doubt in my mind humanity has subjects its members to the worst of fates and tortures. (Like that roman torture to send someone in a boat tied up and covered with honey(?) for them to be eventually consumed by insects breeding inside them.)
I can't see any reason why any "creator" would allow this to happen other than for their amusement.

Life has no value in the eyes of the universe, only as much as we attribute to our existence. Good thing religion exists, people can be brainwashed(and I do not mean this in a slightest derogatory way, rather, in a sense of "wired") to make them believe like there is some good waiting for them in the afterlife. Because that is all we want want for yourself on the most fundamental level — good.
Fuck, can you imagine being lost in cold woods, certain death starts gnawing at you at the back of your mind. How horrible it would be KNOWING there is no one to commiserate with you, that there is no divine providence. You can, of course, create yourself tulpas, as a way out of the godless world and be content, as long as your mental barriers stands. But it's more likely, I think, the creators are placing bets on the outcome of your life, they are just having fun, after all, I doubt, — if my meta about gods is at least somewhat sound, — they know the outcome of the world they've created. Otherwise, why create something in the first place if you know the outcome. Must be a purpose then, a primordial will for something. But if such a will allows this much suffering, I doubt the creators would hold sacred some individual life, rather they would have all of it serve their self-interest.
>>

>>19752622
Of course I've had moment like these. They are probably one of the reasons I took interest in philosophy in the first place. If I were to die from heart attack right now, or a roof was to fall onto my head that would surely be unfortunate, — I would rather not die, — but I will surely die anyway. I have internalized the idea. It might even happen in a few minutes from now. But it is something outside of my control. To give even a thought to the fear before the inevitable is to torment yourself with something you could otherwise dismiss, because, you know, we're can manipulate our thoughts as rational beings that we are. I can build cognitive walls, can burn my worries away. It requires practice, but I sure have experienced its practical success.

It might be that you live anticipating something good to happen to you and so you fear of dying before you can experience that good. Not sure if this describes you, but I think you believe you were predestined to experience that something. But after "taking a look around", my opinion is that there is no guarding angel, no "justice" to equalize the good and bad in your life. Many people live very unfortunate lives, even if they deserved — if some abstract being who deals to everyone according to the idea of justice exists — an otherwise good life. Innocence sure is beautiful, but "farewell, romantics".
Yes, I can TRULY realize that death is coming, but it's probably because I've observed a little and read a little that I'm not to much preoccupied with the worrying about it.
I die everyday. I imagine myself being hit with a car when I walk across the street, or falling onto the train tracks. Maybe it's because I've pictured myself dying in these gruesome ways, I'm not concerned with "but how could this happen to me". People die because of stupidity of other people, should they have lived all their live worrying about stupid person one day bringing an end to their life? People die because of most ridiculous coincidences. Life of truly "saint" people has no more value in the eyes of the universe than the life of most deprived.

Check this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_latrine_disaster
These people where all noblemen. Let's imagine they were men of "higher" nature. Imagine yourself in their place, imagine, you aspire to be a nobleman: you read books, spend time denying yourself the simple pleasures, praise God and his holy circle, and then one day you die, suffocating in liquid shit.
If such stupidity is allowed to happen do you really believe that death is of any importance to worry about it? I might not be expressing my thoughts correctly, but I hope you see my point. Stupid deaths, the sufferings of those who cognizantly nurture innocence in themselves, one might even think that idealists, believing life has any inherit worth, living as to be some sort of GOOD human "in gods eyes", are most ridiculed by the gods.

>>19752415
Embrace the pragmatic naturalism akin to Nietzsche and live a life to the utmost potency of your individual.

The death will come eventually, that's is probably as big of a certainty as "I think, therefore I am".
So why worry about something inevitable?
I believe Seneca wrote in his Letters that "a man is foolish to live his life in the dread of one moment after which is naught". And before that moment comes you could live full of felicity(yes, the word is archaic, but best describing.)

>>19752464
> Literally the reason i'm afraid of it
You attribute to much importance to your ego. It sure is nice to think that you were sent to this world as an epitome of some god, of sort. That your personality is special. But as with all areas we eventually come to understand, materialism always overcomes the idealism (coming back to what I've said above about looking at a world from a naturalistic perspective) — I don't want to say here that one should become a soulless egoist. I like to think about this as hiding idealism inside yourself, while accepting to view the world pragmatically.
So coming back to the ego, we're probably just a result of coincidental conditions, and not of any divine origin. I'd say, if there is god or gods, our existence is probably merely for their amusement, so fuck it, make them laugh to death.
I should say that this is coming from rather despondent guy, and I'd wish to live to the ideals I am now sharing with you. But, nevertheless, I believe them to be true.

I should go to sleep,
I'm tired,
Possibly dying,
Like all of us
do,
Everyday
Like a rusting needle
In a damp stack of hay,
Oxidised by routine
Decaying away
But sometimes,
The time stops
And dares not to move
For a day,
Rarely two,
Never three,
For the people
Who parted their way
With mundane,
Lucky few.
I hope,
That one day,
I will also
Fall into the sky,
And finally get
Some good fucking sleep

>>19696178
I like this a lot.
Especially the part about rocks and the one describing depth in the last stanza. Paints a very vivid picture in my mind.

Join In The Fun

Sometimes we ponder what is right:
Be of most virtue or of the utmost might,
To do what's good for all or be yourself alright
And by which word of God should we our life choose to abide?
I tire myself with all this trite, hear this:
One day there will be no more light,
No precious touch to bring delight,
No more warm heart, where one could hide,
No beauty for a jaded sight,
Forced to observe the unforgiving darkest
Of an unending night it sees inside,
Once, behind the veils, our gaze we hide
To see no more of just as endless,
Devoid of meaning strife,
That is on-going outside our mind,
The one we're destined to forever fight,
And to wake up to new daylight,
Just to partake in a much praised
Suicidal genocide.
So please, come; join in the fun,
Before our earthly time in done,
Before our life is soon forgotten,
Before the summer leaves face autumn.
Before we all shall turn to dust
Come, join in the fun,
At last.

>>19695791
> I think funny endings like yours usually serve to kind of undercut the sincerity that came before
Yeah, that was my intention.
Maybe it's just me, but after writing piles of poems in the "Romantic" style (like those of Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, you've know the kind), it occurred to me that all of them sound out of place when you take a look out of the window. Like, "Am I really going to write about the playful spirits dancing around the fire on a summer night? Is it really a poem that a guy living would write in the 21st century?
No. That poem is just pretentious, it an artificial imitation of reality that is simply not there.
What isn't?
A poem that is natural to the time of the poet.
What is natural to our time?
A post-modern ironic depiction of sincerity. 'Cause everyone is(yes, probably unfortunately) sick, of all the poems about the birds and the trees, and the warmth of the shit)."

>Like, you can't employ that kind of rhythmic trick more than once because it becomes predictable and trite too easily.
I'd say if it works, put it in there. I think, (oh yes, most humbly), that it worked in my poem because of the "gotcha" effect. So, I'd say, as long as you surprise the reader you can write anything. Just gotta place these lines in the right places.


>>19695942
> From the air
I'd remove the "the". It breaks the flow, in my opinion. Also not sure why "Fuel" on the next line is capitalized, reminded me of a real nice game.
> All with nothing
> To show
I'd remove the "All". Feel like without it the lines have more impact as well as a better flow.

>>19695451
I'd say haiku is relic of the past, and looks pretensions in any form nowadays
But to answer your question, I'd say it's the abrupt shift of subject(not sure if that's the right word).
Like
After reading the first line about the grey streets I kinda expect it to rain, so that comes across as natural. But then the shift from 2nd line to the 3rd brings up the subject that has been grinded to trite(and maybe that's the reason)
Maybe an allegory or a metaphor for a kiss would make it less "nosy"

Ice Skating

Today,
I decided,
I spend too much time
Sitting alone
(By myself),
In my dreary home.
And so,
I decided,
I should take a walk
Maybe I'll find someone to talk
(But I doubt).

Then,
While walking,
I stopped and I stood
Near the ice skating rink,
By the fence,
Observing the passersby,
Looking them in the eyes
As they pass me by,
Skating away.

Some fall
And they laugh
And the sun's setting down
And I'm standing
Alone
(By myself),
Near the fence,
Eating the cheapest piece of bread I could find
(You see,
I don't have lots of money right now
Should've listened to my friend Erasmus,
Nothing good ever comes out of books,
"being perishable makes a
man
strange"-
An advice that I never took
By another one of my friends
that has long been dead).

It's also a shame
I can barely see
If I look down,
My sight stops somewhere between
My hands
And my knees
But I have only myself to blame,
For those sleepless nights,
And of screen too much time
Makes those ice skaters all look the same.

It is also a shame,
That I
Drove away all the people I knew
Those who I called actual
"friends"
And now no sight of a person
From behind the fence
Can allay my distress
Yet I still
Enjoy watching
Those people
Ice skating away.

The bread is shit by the way.

Has any one read any of hp lovecrafts books? i have read the call of cthulhu and am starting dream quest for unkown kadath. which should i read after?