/lit/ - Literature

>>8921108
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

Reading accounts and studies of near-death experiences helped me slightly. Science dictates that these are caused by chemical releases in the brain, but the calm and peacefulness reported by most of the people is slightly comforting, if nothing else.

There was one where a guy left his body and floated upwards indefinitely, and he described a pair of boots left on top of the hospital building that he shouldn't have had any knowledge of. Things like that make you question shit.

>>8921113
Thanks. I'm not that familiar with Roman literature, so I will definitely get a copy of this.

>>8921113

Stoicism is a meme/cuck ideology.

Disregard.

>>8921216
Those are some insightful criticisms. You really swayed me, Anon.

>>8921216
How so?

>>8921108
death seems disquieting because we imagine an eternity of nothingness, or even more lame: an eternity of darkness, corpses, coffins, etc. Here's another: an eternity of not being alive. No fun, no books, no friends, no sex, no morning coffee, etc. But here's the catch: time itself is something that affects us insofar as it is perceived, and since when you are dead you can't perceive anything, time is not passing. YOU are not experiencing anything. Death is just as terrible as those billions of years before you were born.
I know this is elementary stuff, but it all boils down to that imo

>>8921108
if youre like me, nothing will.

i'm too narcissistic to come to terms with a universe where my individual consciousness fails to exist forever in its current living active state

>>8921216
>cuck ideology

Speak for yourself

>>8921435
I see your point, but I'm less concerned about whatever may be after death, or before birth, and whether they may be the same. All this is largely irrelevant. It's also in many ways an infinitely more terrifying concept.

The root of anxiety here is Death as the very act of passing the threshold that separates "life" and whatever may be beyond it.

Read Jung

A very short introduction to jung would be a good start, then if you find that interesting read man and his symbols

>>8921108
Stoicism. the only way to no longer fear death is to embrace it, and that it will happen. Don't listen to anyone >>8921216 like this, they can't think for themselves.

>>8921108
you either have to believe in something more powerful than death like an afterlife or reincarnation or something or spend the rest of your life distracting yourself and not thinking about it.

>>8921108
Zazen and Zen Buddhism.

Humanity will always fear the unknown, and the only way to lose that fear is to lose your humanity. Without the anxiety of death, we lose all concept of values and worth. Life and the fear of death gives meaning to the world. You might not think about it; you might accept death; you might indulge in hedonistic pleasure to the point where you feel numb and cannot feel the anxiety, but it always returns. It must always be there as a necessity.

>>8921596
http://jungiancenter.org/the-art-of-dying-well-a-jungian-perspective-on-death-and-dying/

>>8921577
ahh come on! Really? Unless you go through a horrible terminal illness (and maybe even then too), the passage itself is just a moment. Terrifying maybe, liberating perhaps. But it's just a moment. I have this unfounded idea that in the very moment of passage your consciousness acquires a higher level of understanding of it all, and you die in peace. It is after all, a suspension of ordinary life and thinking. I think I may have read about this or seen it in documentaries.

>>8921108
Same artist?

>>8921108
>reify
you should stop using this word

Bojack Horseman

But seriously, your anxiety comes from a need to control your circumstances and death is something no one can fully control. Really, you have no control over anything in your life, will never have it, and have never had it. Despite that, you still enjoyed parts of your life and will continue to do so. Nothing has changed. You were promised death when you came into the world, but that didn't stop happiness from coming. Worrying will only waste the time your have left. Logically speaking, the best thing you can do is what makes you happy while letting it make you happy

Schopenhauer's essay: "On the Indestructibility of Our Essential Being by Death"

>>8921108
Read Phaedo by Plato.

Understand that death is actually a unity with a truer reality, that of God. In a sense, death is like going home.

He almost looks like Don Trump in this screenshot...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogyq0z6KDGM

"The immensity of death"? What makes it "immense"? Why do you not want to fear it? If you want to live, then how could you not fear it? If you don't have dreams and plans, then how could death be anything at all? Without a future there's little to lose.

What is it that dies when you die? Do the components of your body disappear? I don't think so. Nature has no excesses nor deficiencies, knows no mandates. There's no mold for you to break nor conform. There's no path to stray from nor follow. There's only going. There's no goer or gone. There's only a pattern that will end on a date, and then others will arise, until the music ends; but if you understand it is a song, then you'll see it ends as much as it starts.

Do you see my point? You might not, but without revealing your neuroses any more you're asking us to read your mind.

Try going one day without worrying, it might be more helpful than any book.

Read Montaigne

Why do you care? Either there's an afterlife, in which case it ain't that immense, or there isn't, in which case you won't feel it.
Stupidest pretentious teenage hipster fear.

>>8921134
>There was one where a guy left his body and floated upwards indefinitely, and he described a pair of boots left on top of the hospital building that he shouldn't have had any knowledge of.


rooooo

I'm triggered because a girl in one of my uni classes brought this same thing up as proof of some dumb /x/ shit or other

I gave the old 'for every dream that did come true there are a million more that didn't' but I could tell that due to my low charisma that in that moment I was the 'no fun allowed Bill Nye Guy' in the room and everyone was going to go right on believing in ghosts, god, and psychic power

It's been 4 years and I'm still mad

>>8921108
The Last Days of Socrates is a good one. I would seriously consider it in your condition. In it, Socrates basically rationalizes and learns to accept death, something that you could really use.

>>8924447
This

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Do psychadelic drugs. You will come to welcome death

>>8921108
anxiety & death are what heidegger is all about

Read Yalom.

>>8921216
Death is a meme/cuck ideology.

Disregard.

>>8921108
nothing will prepare you for it


stoo thinking about it

>>8921108
Iliad.

>>8921108

>Is that actually anything I can do to overcome intense death anxiety?

Stop being atheist. It's profoundly misguided.

Then try to be a good person to those around you. Be loving in the face of rage and choose to feel innocence instead of jealousy.

The rest will sort itself out as you naturally mature.

You don't need to be religious. Just know that you have a soul and try to be mindful of that fact. You might slip up from time to time and be lowly (you are only human) but always keep that understanding around you and a part of you.

>>8924721

This is also true. Death is the greatest propaganda to ever beset man. Death doesn't actually exist.

Suicide.

Read Of Human Bondage

gotta give it up for big alan watts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8gR4sQvjt4

>>8921108
Read The Holy Bible.

How many /lit/ Anons do you think have died without anyone noticing? You could have talked to one the day before and made him smile or laugh.

Dying is inextricable from the harsh flame of sexual torture in which one is progressively consumed. It does not patiently await its consummation, but gnaws at the base of the brain; grinding each life into eroticized debris. Survival dissolves as a frangible dam does—eroded to bits by the tumult of energetic rage—so that sexual craving is the howl of nature’s fringe pounded into trash by the sun.

Humanity is a petrified fiction hiding from zero, a purgatorial imprisonment of dissolution, but to be stricken with sanctity is to bask in death like a reptile in the sun. God is dead, but more importantly, God is death. The beginning of the secret is that death is immense.

>>8921108

Oh for fucks sake. I had a big reply typed out for you with links and names of books and scientists and then my computer crashed. God fucking dammit. I am typing this on my phone and it's 3am so I will just make it brief. I agree with the other anon. Read up on Near Death Experiences and I don't mean going to /x/. Check out the "Center for Consciousness" at the University of Arizona. They are a collection of medical doctors/neurologists/professors who have done research in this field and it is quite interesting. Research studies are linked there so are books and a lot of name's. By no means solid proof but I don't think it can be discarded.I read a book called "Science and the Near Death Experience" by Chris Carter which examines physiological and psychological theories for NDE's and refutes them and examines NDE's documented in historical civilizations. You could also check out Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" which is a deist work although converting to deism requires a leap of faith. Good luck OP.

>>8925004
You could probably work it out if you estimated the post rate to unique views the board gets with the suicide rate in young men alongside it compared to how long you've been browsing here.

>>8925022

You need to be conscious to perceive sexual torture. Death is not even comparable. You can't even say death is blackness because again you would need to be conscious to formulate that. If you choose to be an atheist I think the most accurate way to describe death would simply be it's like before you were born.

>>8921664
yes

>>8921108
I don't know, I don't have intense anxiety over death. I've lost a lot of family members who taught me how to live life and enjoy living and I know that they are at peace. So why fret? When our time comes, it comes and there is no avoiding that. So why worry about what we cannot control?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA18FAF1AD9047B0

>>8921108
>worrying about death
when will this meme end?

>>8924491
haha this fucking guy knows

To be perfectly honest, just reading the Iliad and Odyssey has helped me with this. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it has something to do with the frequent violent deaths in the Iliad, Achilles' freedom to choose his fate and acceptance of his death, and Odysseus' enduring of suffering.

>>8925087
Thanks, I really appreciate this.

>>8921108
I know this will sound like a meme, and isn't /lit/, but psilocybin took care of mine, completely. From what I know about psychedelics, DMT also seems to be effective in that area. If anyone is considering this, they should obviously research the subject thoroughly and take all the necessary harm reduction measures for the experience.

Aside from that, >>8926289.

>>8928459
A friend of mine recommended mushrooms, too. Could you put your experience into words, if possible? What revelations did you have?

>>8921108
Essays of Michel de Montaigne

All of it. The great wealth of knowledge out there that you have not yet attained is one of the greatest reasons to live.

>>8921108
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

>>8928523
Patterns.
The whole world is filled with patterns. Human beings find happiness in patterns. That is why people are drawn to music and dancing.
You know how time can be conquered? How death can be overcome? Patterns. Two different objects can be the same. This leads to reproduction which all living organisms do. Which the solution to time that people ignore even though is right in front of their fucking faces. Why there are male and female why sex is everywhere. The solution is there. You are a pattern. You are you're ancestors. You are your children. You are your brothers and sisters. You have always been and always will be.

Have you heard the story of sand?

>>8921108
It's too primal to overcome; you just have to accept it. It's like that wikiHow picture meme.

>>8930038
Not that anon, but please tell the story of sand.

>>8930175
The Tales of the Sands
Spiritual Story by Idries Shah

A stream, from its source in far-off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, at last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but it found that as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared.

It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered: "The Wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream."

The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly, and this was why it could cross a desert.

"By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over, to your destination."

"But how could this happen?"

"By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind."

This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to know that it could ever be regained?

"The wind," said the sand, "performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river."

"How can I know that this is true?"

"It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream."

"But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?"

"You cannot in either case remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one."

I don't think you know what reify means

>>8930203
Beautiful.

>>8930230
it's quite appropriate in this context

>>8930203
Interesting, how Sufi (as told through Shah) and pre-Platonic Greek (as quoted by Heraclitus) can find common ground in this stream: "One cannot cross the same stream twice; for it is not the same stream, and they are not the same person."

λόγος + ترتيب الكون

>>8921108
Nope, just accept it. Accept that there isn't anything you can do, and there isn't any way to know what happens afterwards short of trying to die and be revived. It's scary, but yeah.

>>8921108
I don't think I'll ever understand why people are afraid to die. Once it happens it won't matter anymore, you won't care. I'm only scared of the pain that may accompany the end.

>>8930390
道可道,非恆道;
名可名,非恆名。

>>8930486
不聞不若聞之,聞之不若見之,見之不若知之,知之不若行之;學至於行之而止矣
>What I was trying to communicate: "Tell me and I [will] forget. Show me and I [will] remember. Involve me and I [will] understand."
>What Google Translate will turn this into: "Do not smell the smell, if not see the see, see if not know, know it not;"
>What I think you're saying: 道德經
And you're right.

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, maybe. Try it! Visit some nursing homes and see what happens to people who live too long. That might actually help. It's not pretty.

Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it...white shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

>>8930587
[citation needed]

>>8930594
"Why do people keep thinking I said that?"

>>8930203
Awesome.

If you are so afraid of death, could it, perhaps, be that you you're truly just afraid that you aren't living life?

>>8930251
Only if you're profoundly deluded to the point you can't admit you're wrong.

>>8932184
death is the ultimate abstract and the ultimate abstraction. to reify it is to understand it.

>>8932179
I...

>>8930203
This parable isn't comparable at all to death. Death is a cessation, not some kind of transition.

>>8922702
Calme toi Jacques.

So think of this way. You're actually already dead. You've been dead for millions of years and you will be dead for millions of years. Right now, for a blink you are not dead and you may chose to spend this blink however you see fit. But no matter what you do you were and soon will be again in your place and it's good.

>>8921108
I was like you, but now i don't give a shit tb h. Just realize that death is something natural and it WILL HAPPEN, the more i thought about it the more spooked i was until i crossed the line into not giving a fuck. Thinking about death is good, i have to admit that i drowned in my sleep once, i was struggling so hard to breathe and was in so much pain, that the moment i died was such a great relief, it felt amazing tb h, that really overcame my anxiety about death, especially drowning.

>>8921108

The Bhagavad Gita helped me. Start believing that any unavoidable suffering is simply your negative karma being worked out.

>Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on others which are new, likewise the embodied soul, casting off old bodies, is united with other, new ones.
>Weapons do not cut it; fire does not burn it; water does not wet it; the wind does not dry it.

>>8928523
When I did mushrooms for the first time recently it was almost like I forgot I existed. It felt like dying and coming back. Made me think that my eventual death would be something of a journey.
I did twice the recommended amount for a first timer so it was prettt intense

>>8933655
That's not good though. That is fucking horrifying.

>>8933664
No longer existing is exactly what I am scared of, though. The cessation of my experience is such an enormous horror that I can't even put it into words. Trying to put it into words almost demeans this problem because it is a terror of such enormous magnitude that it cannot be expressed in literal terms. How am I supposed to reconcile the fact that all this will just stop?

>>8930556
>Visit some nursing homes and see what happens to people who live too long.
This is some good advice. My parents have to change my grandmother's diapers and it's not pretty.

>>8933655
That's not good though. That is fucking horrifying.

>>8933664
No longer existing is exactly what I am scared of, though. The cessation of my experience is such a horror that I can't even put it into words. Trying to put it into words almost demeans this problem because it is a terror of such enormous magnitude that it cannot be expressed in literal terms. How am I supposed to reconcile the fact that all this will just stop?

I'm considering seeing a therapist because I'm getting anxiety attacks every time I go to sleep now, because the moment of unconsciousness before you start dreaming is a kind of death. I'm scared of that.

>>8933701
Consider the use of worrying. Worrying can help you out by motivating you to prepare for the object of your worry.

However, death, or non-existence cannot be prepared for, since non-existence entails a total lack of experience, so nothing can be done about it.

You will never actually experience "nothingness". Understand that your worry is irrational and channel it towards things actually worth worrying about - anything negative that you can actually experience.

I think many would endorse the statement that suffering is worse than death.

>>8933662
I once dreamed I died in a train accident by which I mean I was on a train, something happened and from one moment to the next I was surrounded by nothing and I was nothing and I thought nothing and it was fucking horrible and I woke up drenched in sweat.

>>8933575
How do you know? And a cessation of what?

>>8921108
1. Become a transhumanist, die tragically.
2. Find comfort in transience.

>>8921108
What about the intense life anxiety? What about the immensity of life OP?
Death is a sure thing, but life is just as certain.

>>8934303
Hell, at least you can avoid death for a couple years.

>>8932179
Not OP but thats my real fear. Spending my life in uncertainty, not having done anything of worth, and then realising my potential when I'm in my twilight years and it's all too late

death is fucking great, it's not something to be afraid of. either

a) it's what you defer every day like a hero, making yourself more ubermensch
b) the end of the line, sweet release
c) both

>i actually hate life and really only think about ending it now but maybe you feel different

everything good comes out of death. whether you fight it or surrender to it. the only thing that's actually stupid is being afraid of it

So this whole thread is talking about the anxiety surrounding one's own death. I have accepted that insofar as it does not cause me anxiety. How do I deal with the death of loved ones?

definitely read some medical literature

>>8933662
>>8933742
A couple of years ago I smoked what I thought was Salvia and straight after the bowl I became a vegetable, wouldnt respond to my friends as I just sat there drooling (they filmed me). I had no recollection of it until they told me what happened after I'd come to. But what I remembered was being chased by some sort of mob all shouting at me, saying I was dead. I became surrounded and fell to the floor, seeing their faces crowding over me, still telling me I was dead as I pleaded to them that I wasnt, and yet I remember feeling like I was trying to fool them and I didnt even believe myself. Then after that it became much more abstract, "I" was some sort of geometric "chess piece" on a vibrantly psychedelic, three dimensional grid filled with pieces like me. It's like I was being tugged at, like something was trying to take me off it. Each tug created a painful kind of sound that I cant describe, but every time I got yanked I felt the most immense mix of fear and anger that I've ever felt in my life, of being removed from that grid. Then I guess I came to.

Turns out it wasnt Salvia but synthetic weed. Tripped harder than I ever did on LSD. Anyway I consider that a near death experience even though I was just tripping hard on spice

>>8921108
>Is [there] actually anything I can do to overcome intense death anxiety?

I used to get repeating panic attacks for hours every night because I was afraid of dying and thought that if I went to sleep I would die.

You have to face it. Whatever anyone tells you, you can doubt, and you can fear.

You have to face it. Then you will realize there is really nothing to fear, and the relief will be like nothing else you have ever experienced.

Good luck anon

>>8921108
Ayahuasca or magic mushrooms? Both have much anecdotal or limited clinical evidence suggesting they help with that specifically.

>>8921435
>Implying the consciousness truly leaves the body

Death is losing the intellect, the mind, the memories, and all that makes life worth living, then slowly rotting into dust while the world forgets about you.

>>8935129
That actually *is* a cool story, bro. Thank you for sharing that.

>>8921108
I don't even know if I've posted this before. I'm pretty sure it's devastating, when you really think about it, and yet it may only mean what I think it does to me, so reading it might just make you go "meh" or "whatever," but I also believe there will be at least one person who it will help somehow, even if it's just me:

We talk often of "ego-death." We imagine it as the abandonment of self and the tearing down of the constructions with which you have built your identity, and we imagine that peeling the layers of the onion back will result in transcendence, revealing some essence that lasts beyond.

But it may be even more simple: ego isn't something that *can* die, ego *is* death.

Think about it - what can death be? Death is physical, in that it represents the point at which our bodies no longer participate in the functions of consciousness or displacement of oxygen, and become inert. We become fully objectified, and forever past-tense. Therefore, the only part of us that can die is everything we imagine that we are.

When you dissociate, you are sent to a psychologist or psychiatrist, because it's not a functional state for present society. Yet, you also become aware that "you" are not your body. You recognize that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and you accept a perspective from outside your body. You have an epiphany: there may not be "life" after death, but there is existence. The world, others, the entirety of the cosmos all continue beyond your body, and they always have - and so they will when "you" are gone... but that doesn't mean you can't keep going.

This perspective can be dangerous, because it tends to deemphasize the importance of the individual, and I hope it isn't taken as such, because you *are* a body, right now - but you're not *just* a body. You have agency and will, and these two things are so incredibly important that it's not even really describable, because bodies working together to create things and communicate their observations is basically the meaning behind it all, as far as we know, and you must never believe you are anything less than a perfect and infinitely complex person - as much as every other person. But there's no reason to worry about when you don't have a body any longer. There will always be bodies, and we will all get to where we need to be eventually.

tl;dr: the degree to which we define ourselves is the degree to which we can experience death.

>>8935373
sounds like you're describing dementia, not death

>>8935455
This is what "humbling experiences" are all about. When you go down a tranquil river on canoe and see the trees go on and on, your plans start to look petty. Same with any other experience with alterity. It's the relief of seeing new things you didn't know were there already, both in and out.

>>8935455
>because bodies working together to create things and communicate their observations is basically the meaning behind it all, as far as we know, and you must never believe you are anything less than a perfect and infinitely complex person - as much as every other person. But there's no reason to worry about when you don't have a body any longer. There will always be bodies, and we will all get to where we need to be eventually.

/thread.