/lit/ - Literature

What is there to cope with?

>>16153952
Cope or don't cope, it won't matter in the end since you die either way.
That is the cope.

>>16153992
Your consciousness, memories and everything else will vanish forever.

I get that most people would just answer with something like "who cares, I don't want to live forever anyway" but the idea that me and everyone precious to me will be reduced to nothingness for an eternity terrifies me. I love my family and it's the thing that keeps me going but if everything is matter and my "love" is just chemicals in my brain when I could just kill myself today and the existence of all the people that I love would become meaningless, as if they never existed in the first place.
Some suicidal people say that they don't kill themselves because they don't want to make their parents sad. Why would that be stopping them? Your love is not something out of the boundaries of the universe, you care about how your parents feel because of the chemicals in your brain. Even if you kill yourself knowing that it will make your mom sad, what difference would that make? Your understanding of everything that means anything to you will be gone once you pull the trigger

Read tragic sense of life NOW

What is there to cope? Not even sadfagging, but doesn't the idea of complete end of existence give you a sense of catharsis?
I can't cope with the idea of afterlife, because then nothing would ever end.

>>16153952
You can't and you're fucked. Nihilism is the terminal point of atheism. This is the path you chose.

>>16154305
You think someone "chooses" to be an atheist? It would be nice to live knowing that death is not the end of your existence but not all of us can make ourselves believe in a magical sky daddy

>>16153952

When you're dead it will be just like before you were born.

>>16153952
Perfectly

>>16154365
Isn't Lucretius' response though live life as a feast, in the epicurean rather than the hedonistic sense, and get over it his response

afterlife is literally the only good cope. Everything else is just mental gymnastics

>>16154378
Yes. They were Epicurean

>>16153952
Virgin: Is There life after death
Chad: Is There life before death

>>16153952
Your death means nothing to you because you won't experience it. It's what it will mean to others that is your concern. So live well, so that there's someone who will remember you fondly.

>>16154233
The universe being so vast that every specific object contained in it seems insignificant in comparison doesn't deny the existence and modes of existence of those objects. Also the 'what for?' is a trap, things just are.

>>16154233
>will be reduced to nothingness for an eternity terrifies me
Why? You won't ever know.
>it's the thing that keeps me going
Well, that's rather sad.
>existence of all the people that I love would become meaningless
It's not meaningless. While you're alive, their existence still has an effect on the chemicals in your brain.

Just see it as a long lasting game. Stuff matters while the game goes on inside the framework of a game.

>>16154448
Imagine being such a brainlet

>>16154458
Great point, big-brain-chan.

>>16154435
>The universe being so vast that every specific object contained in it seems insignificant in comparison doesn't deny the existence and modes of existence of those objects
I don't understand, how does this contradict anything in my post?

>>16154448
>It's not meaningless. While you're alive, their existence still has an effect on the chemicals in your brain.
But it's all temporary and artificial. I can enjoy life to its full extent but that doesn't change the fact that I'm just essentially passing time until the eventual erasure of my being and everything that I perceive to be real. If I died right now I would be merely speeding up that process

>>16154395
>They
Huh?

>>16154485
>If I died right now I would be merely speeding up that process
And lower the amount of joy you could get from it.

You can skip all tracks in an album to get to the end sooner too but it'd be fucking stupid.

>>16154549
Epicurus and Lucretius

>>16154571
you're so fucking annoying why are you bugging everyone

>>16154567
>And lower the amount of joy you could get from it.
But joy only matters because you can perceive it. If I died right now, all that potential joy of the future would become pointless.

Sure, I could live on and experience more joy but I would also experience more pain, why not just die and end everything? Non existence is neither positive nor negative

>>16153952
i dont cope . i just am. if i die i die. thats it if there is an afterlife then cool.if not, then fuck it

Why would you have any mental capacity for worrying about what happens after death after taking into account worrying about dyING? It's that present tense bit that worries me the most. Indescribable terror and the worst agony you'll ever feel in your life for, at very least, several seconds; perhaps minutes, perhaps longer. And what about the 3 minutes or so your brain is active for after the body has died? Stuck in a numb unseeing place, aware that everything you love etc. is about to be erased and all you can do is just be there and wait for it to happen. Truly, getting blown to bits in a basejumping accident such that your brain is obliterated in less than a second is probably the best possible outcome to a sentient life.

>>16154624
>why not just die and end everything
Way more potential for joy than pain unless you live in a third world country and have to fight for a meal once a month.

>>16154663
Oh btw I'm 25 and pretty much the earliest memories I have are of being awake at like 3 AM at <5 years old, eyes wide open, shaking and out of my wits with terror at these thoughts. It occupies my every waking moment to the point of distraction from ordinary tasks and I'm uselessly unproductive as a result despite having a hard physics/chemistry degree. I think I may have some form of OCD but I'm from the UK so mental healthcare is worth than useless.

>>16154233
you're not infinite dumbass. do what you can with what you have

>>16153952
Maybe you should ask Reddit. We believe in God and the Afterlife here.

>>16154699
>we
NGMI

>>16154712
"We" is referring to me and the Holy Trinity you troglodyte

>>16153952
Montaigne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Was0Wn8eZGs

>>16153952
See Heidegger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_os-ysZJM_I

>>16154233
Meaning is a spook
When you're dead you won't worry about any of this stuff so why worry about it now?

>>16154680
But you will still experience some pain, which is negative. You can avoid the pain altogether by dying. Non existence in essence is better than life with mostly joy and some pain

>>16153952
literature

>>16154233
People don't fear death, they fear having lived a meaningless life. If you had something to live for, something that makes you happy then you would hardly think about death - your brain would be engaged with plotting further successes - "What do we say to Death? Not today!"

You're stuck between a feeling of hopelessness and the thought of grim oblivion - you feel trapped. Seek something to aspire to. When you're working towards a personal glory your thoughts surrounding death melt away.

>>16154624
I mean if you want to kys its your call, but the fact is futile like any other act

>>16154738
>>16154220
>>16154427
>>16154663
>>16154738
since when is /lit/ full of so many youtube comment section tier simpletons?

>>16154350
"If I cast my eyes before me, what an infinite space in which I do not exist; and if I look behind me, what a terrible procession of years in which I do not exist, and how little space I occupy in this vast abyss of time"

>>16154663
Just because your brain is active doesn't mean you're conscious

>>16154778
Because its a "simple opinion", that somehow makes it wrong?

>>16154814
Your brain becomes hyperactive before death. Hyper alert.

>>16153952

>>16154820
Okay very cool, again that doesn't automatically equate to being conscious
In addition I cant imagine this happens when shot in the head

>>16154747
Why? +80 joy -20 pain sounds preferable to zero. How does a little bit of pain make it worth to skip on all of the joy?

>>16154747
Nah. The vast majority of people do not live in pain. Pain is fleeting, and our memories of it greatly reduces as time passes. The vast majority of existence is an equilibrium of a neutral emotional state. Yes, you may have extreme mood swings in between - but the majority of time you're neither happy nor sad, just living in the moment taking all the exquisite experiences for granted.
That coffee you're drinking? Think of the huge historical and economic chain that is required to get it to you, you ungrateful cunt. That tree outside you just walked past? Actually really think about how utterly perfect that organic specimen is: it exists on this planet and does everything it possibly can to survive. Feel the bark, listen to the leaves whilst the world bustles and swirls around it. Know that you are literally part of the great chain of life that girdles this planet, except you are the exception: you have sentience to appreciate and contemplate the utterly alien beauty of life itself. Life is actually genuinely alien, when you think about it - an anomaly in the vast abyss of the universe. A flurry of colour in the inky blackness of space. And why? Why does it exist? Just to not-exist? Nah. It has a purpose, but perhaps our savagely logical mind fails to see the forest for the trees, so to speak - maybe we sacrificed our animal intuition when we traded it in for a frontal cortex.

>>16154859
>quantifying joy and suffering
>being economical in regards to it
Bugman detected

>>16154865
>entitlement argument
Big yawn

>>16154865
Such a good post and then you had to end it with the whole purpose faggotory.

>>16153952
By accepting life as it is and loving it. That "meaning of life", or it's so-called purpose, is life in itself. By giving yourself to this realization you will be enraptured by the sheer experience of being alive. And by the end, despite your present fears of the void, you're far beyond the fear of death.

Also, I recommend pic related. It's not a book, really, just a book-length interview. Some might call it pop psychology, because it's not very challenging or entirely original. But it's a great read nonetheless, and it definitely helped open me up to spirituality.

>>16154875
>n-no, you can't use math to evaluate existence

>>16154882
Feeling tired? Here, this pillow will help - over your face.

>>16154897
i bet you thought this was clever

>>16154885
It's something I think about. Life has purpose, we just fail to understand it. When you look at life, really look at it - from flesh eating bacteria to the mammalian nurturing of a mother and infant - it is so utterly beautiful and alien that it's greater than any God the human mind could feebly conjure. Think of all the steps of evolution, from single celled organisms to bipedal apex predators. Why did life take these turns? Why not just not exist? There's something beneath the hum of life, something hidden between the electrical flashes of our neurons that is almost orgasmic. A distant pulse, beating the drum of Life....is it the same colour red as the Great White's jaws? Or the iridescence of the beetle's carapace? Does it share the disciplined patience of the mantis, or frenzy of a shoal of piranhas?

>>16154905
I bet you smiled in spite of yourself.

>>16154778
>these aren't appealing to my big brain because the words are not pretty enough
Jesus Christ, what's with this absolute fucking circle-jerk of a board.

>>16154982
>Life has purpose, we just fail to understand it.
But why would we even assume that, if not for our primitive need based on an even more primitive instincts which makes us fear the unknown.
>Why did life take these turns?
Following the law of least resistance usually.
>Why not just not exist?
Chance alone would make it unlikely. We don't even have to look at nature to see that very simple things can lead to crazy complex system. Your computer functions with a super basic binary system but can do things with it, that would be hard to imagine just a century ago, and basically be an alien artifact if going back further. And in a few decades it could break our imaginations again, and it would still be based on a fundament that's laughable simple.
>A distant pulse, beating the drum of Life
Are just unimaginable large numbers of vibrations hitting the right beats by accident which set all the shit in motion. Adding any sort of design or purpose to it would take away from the beauty. Why not just enjoy us and our world being the chain of coincidences that happened to go this exact way for us to be able to experience it.

It's like falling in love with a person you met on the airport while you waited for your flights into opposite direction vs actively going on a dating site to purposefully pick a potential partner.

I don't know if there's a god or an afterlife. All you can do is your best to live a full life and leave the world in a better place than when you came into it. That is all you can do.

>>16153952
I've been one with the void for billions upon billions of years before being born
Don't remember having any complains, so it must be alright there

>>16153952
>the concept of death
Can you explain what death is to me?

>>16155450
It’s also entirely possible that it was unbearable agony, but you just can’t remember it.

>>16155457
even if it is so, even if the universe is inherently unfair and we are born to suffer, there is still no point in fearing it since you can't really do anything about it, can you?

>>16155457
However, it’s just as possible that it was infinite bliss
I do think nothingness is the most likely answer though

>>16155002
Either use the big words or go make me a sandwich, Gordon.

>>16153992
fpbp
>Your consciousness, memories and everything else will vanish forever
wow, it's fucking nothing.

ODing on fenty is the best way to go out

>>16153952
afterlife is a hope concept built by weaklings to achieve a false sense of peace of mind.
be like me, and make your own jefferson religion, rooted in all things understood.

>>16153992
Eternal blackness and nothingness

>>16156638
sounds comfy to me

>>16156638
Eternal blackness is something. You have to be conscious to be aware of it.

>>16153952
>how does one cope with the concept of death if he can't believe in an afterlife?
lel anon you dont have to cope with death! That´s the best thing about it!

>>16153952
afterlife of any sort is a cope, even the pseud athiest "eternal oblivion". Fearing death is natural, but fearing it to the point that in gets in the way of experiencing what you have now, life, is a bad omen. Stop looking for answers after death and start asking yourself what gives meaning here and now.

>>16155450
And yet here you are now, able to perceive this World with ease. And just like that, you'll be stripped of that right in a few decades.

>>16153952
Start "living in the moment", so to speak. You only have time to ponder the pointlessness of existence when you're not occupied with something. Also consider that if everything is transient, it's best not to care about death and enjoy life as much as you can, since you'll never experience it again

at least I will be good fertilizer one day

>>16157564
I'll fertilize your mom

>>16157569
you're a fucking egg

>>16157569
i bet i can fuck his mom before you can

>>16154336
brainlets believe in religious imagery as existent entity.
midwits think they are smort for laughing at said imagery as "magical sky daddy".
bigbrainers understand the essential philosophical concepts of said imagery.

>>16153952
Recognize that there may be a good reason you strive so much for the eternal.

>>16157669
>midwits think they are smort for laughing at said imagery as "magical sky daddy".
>bigbrainers understand the essential philosophical concepts of said imagery.
you can act smart all you want but that's what most religions essentially are. Religious people believe that there's a supernatural being that passes judgement. That's what everything in Christianity is based on, without the judgement and guidance of that supernatural being or "magical sky daddy" there would be no reason to follow any religious morals or believe in an afterlife

the wisdom of Christianity lies in the implication that the imagination of such concepts as judgment from an absolute standpoint serves the purpose of humbling your own intellect better than the pure concept of it without an image.

>>16156638
Thinking about it, eternal blackness would be akin to Hell. For a creature largely driven by its senses, having those senses muted/removed but still being conscious would be extreme psychological torture. Death is either the absolute absence of consciousness in a way which is impossible to describe because it lacks any tangibility or corporality - OR death is simply "rebirth", akin to us being animated organic models that eventually collapse back into the soup of life simply to be reborn and relive, almost like the peaks and troughs of waves on a lake. Life is a constant that forms, dies and reforms over and over again.
Could it be that consciousness has always existed, it's just that life needed to create the correct biological apparatus in order to tune into it - the brain being almost like a fleshy antenna? Consciousness is always "there", Life simply just needed to be able to "tune into" it?

>>16153952
Commit yourself to the search for wisdom and the addition of your abilities to the outer reaches of research in the natural sciences, philosophy, etc. so that you can speed the process of achieving singularity and, in a few 10,000s of years or so maybe you'll be brought back to life as a divine being with the rest of humanity through the corporeal synthesization of the Aryan soul.
If you're not white, though, you're fucked.