/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14881630]

How do you cope with the inevitability of death?

[Anonymous No.14881636]

>>14881630
cope isn't necessary
unawareness is key

[Anonymous No.14881643]

>>14881630
Death is a new birth. Atheists are self-loathing spiritual masochists with extremely small brains.
They don't even know what they don't know.

[Anonymous No.14881648]

>>14881630
Make sure to do as much as you can while you're still alive.

[Anonymous No.14881656]

Unironically why do posts like these get upvotes here. They don't have anything to do with literature. Shouldn't these go on another sub?

[Anonymous No.14881655]

>>14881630
Death itself is a big nothing, the only scary part is the process of dying which will likely be agonizing.

[Anonymous No.14881658]

>>14881643
>zero evidence that people are reborn
>rejects simple facts about death
>coping by clinging to spook

just get coronaded already

[Anonymous No.14881667]

>>14881630
I'm more worried about coping with the amount of life I still have to run through
I don't welcome death but I have nothing worth living for either, so I feel like I'm just waiting for nothing at all

[Anonymous No.14881682]

>>14881643
>Death is a new birth

Thats mathematically impossible

[Anonymous No.14881711]

I don't cope with it. I've accepted that life is pointless and will be commiting suicide in under 5 years.

[Anonymous No.14881803]

>>14881656
because post like these are literally the essence of literature

[Anonymous No.14881810]

>>14881630
To quote mah boi Epicurus:
"Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo."
Once you're dead, you won't give a FUCK

Also, I try to place emphasis on being grateful for having existed at all (as a human — which I think is cool, and not born defective or in some hell-hole), rather than lamenting how short life is. I know its cliche, but the transience of life is a part of the beauty of it.

[Anonymous No.14881821]

>>14881656

[Anonymous No.14881855]

>>14881630
this world is nothing more than the stuff of dreams to me

[Anonymous No.14881858]

>>14881630
just don't think about it bruh, focus on living your life

[Anonymous No.14881939]

I don't really get what people mean by this, nor the copes for it. I genuinely just want to die, but I don't want to die without dignity. I only want to 'live my life', by which I mean find love, raise a family and have a fulfilling career, all so I can die with dignity having lived a good life. Living that good life is the problem, not the death.

For the record I don't believe in any afterlife to reward me, nor do I fear any just punishment.

[Anonymous No.14882030]

>>14881630
Death is not the end. If anything, death is simply the immortal soul being released from its cage. The material world is vanity, the eternal world is truth.

[Anonymous No.14882155]

>>14882030
Wholesome and truth pilled

[Anonymous No.14882163]

I take solace in the fact that we are lucky to have existed at all.

[Anonymous No.14882195]

Death is cool. Living forever sounds like a real drag. Fear of death is a great trait to have if you're a caveman and you need to pass on your genes. Truth is you can't be certain what death is like so just embrace that it'll happen.

[Anonymous No.14882227]

>>14882163
I take solace in the fact that it does not last forever, for not only would we be apart from god indefinitely, I personally would also be stuck in this miserable life

[Anonymous No.14882272]

>>14881656
>Why yes, I come from Reddit, how could you tell?

[Anonymous No.14882683]

>>14881682
yet its actually possible

[Anonymous No.14882700]

>>14881630
i just don't think about it

[Anonymous No.14882701]

>>14881656
>upvotes

[Anonymous No.14882781]

>>14881630
cope isn't necessary
awareness is key
try to meditate more so that my next life isn't a 10,000 life cycle of being in hell or an animal

[Anonymous No.14882793]

>>14881658
Prove death is the end of existence. Theres no reason to think that at all, you exist and the simplest answer is that you will continue to exist in some way

[Anonymous No.14882808]

>>14882793
Prove that it isn't. I can pretend to be an idiot too.

[Anonymous No.14882976]

bump

[Anonymous No.14883782]

>>14881939
>fulfilling career

anon, unless you break into the top 1% to dominate an industry and live a comfortable life your job will be unfulfilling at best and utter wageslavery at worst

[Anonymous No.14884077]

>>14881630
Lead a fulfilling and enjoyable life.

[Anonymous No.14884089]

Chill out dude it's just a good nap

[Anonymous No.14884099]

By living an unfulfilling existence and shunning all serious relationships

[Anonymous No.14884414]

No way does experience end

But even if it did that's exactly why it doesn't matter, you won't exist to care or know of your own non-existence.

[Anonymous No.14884452]

>>14881630
you connect with the transcendent

[Anonymous No.14884506]

If I worry about something for long enough, I stop caring about it. I don't think I'm coping

[Anonymous No.14884519]

>>14881630
With curiosity

[Anonymous No.14884523]

>>14881630
Live long enough and the prospect of simply not existing anymore starts to look more and more appealing

[Anonymous No.14885271]

>>14881630
Nobody born after 1995 is going to die of old age.

[Anonymous No.14885282]

I write. My work will outlive my flesh.

[Anonymous No.14885283]

>>14881630
https://discord.gg/SCXq7KE

[Anonymous No.14885301]

>>14881656
Go back

[Anonymous No.14885302]

>>14881630
I’ll know it’s inevitable when it happens.

[Anonymous No.14885314]

Jn 11:25

[Anonymous No.14885321]

It can't come quickly enough. How do you cope with the slow march of life?

[Anonymous No.14885350]

>>14881630
Where the FUCK is your sense of ADVENTURE? Aren't you curious to see whatever could possibly happen next?

[Anonymous No.14885356]

>>14881630
This, existence for ordinary human beings, is all probably a scam and there's probably a way you can hack existence so I dont believe in it

[Anonymous No.14886298]

>>14881630
knowing that i'll finally be free and just try to enjoy life

[Anonymous No.14886311]

>>14881643
Metaphysical realms simply put do not exist. The mind is a product of the body. Parts of the brain can be shocked and stimulated to change people’s behaviour to a surprising degree. People can literally undergo a procedure that changes their political orientation through shock therapy. There is no soul therefore there is no heaven and hell and there is no God

Just fucking prove God exists. Just once and I’ll believe you

[Anonymous No.14886335]

I'm probably going to hell when I die. It would shock and amaze me if anything else happened.

[Anonymous No.14886336]

>>14881630
i don't cope i mope

[Anonymous No.14886344]

>>14886335
What have you done to deserve that?

[Anonymous No.14886345]

[Anonymous No.14886357]

>>14881630
Eternal life in Christ. Before I converted, didn't care. While I was converting, I was bothered by the fact that I wouldn't eventually go. Now I understand what the eternal state entails and I am at peace in life and death.

[Anonymous No.14886405]

Why would I be worried about getting eternal rest.

[Anonymous No.14886407]

>>14886357
Well said, brother.

[Anonymous No.14886424]

>>14886344
I did some very messed up things when younger that continue to negatively affect some people close to me.
The more I investigate Christianity the more convinced I become that I deserve it. When I was going to church because my parents made me go, I didn't think about it much and did as I pleased because I viewed myself as a good person and thought I would be fine even if I messed up here and there. As an adult I began to take it more seriously but still thought I would be fine - after all, I wasn't a drug dealer or a murderer or anything, right? Then I started reading the works of saints, mystics, and theologians in addition to scripture, and in time God granted me clarity of vision when seeing myself and my actions. Everything up to that point seemed to accuse me - the prideful, lazy way I assumed I could do what I pleased as a teenager because I went to church and daydreamed during the sermon every week, the countless times I had guiltily prayed for forgiveness only to fall back into my ways days or even hours afterwards, the way I had, time and time again, resisted the need to confess and change my ways because I was comfortable in them. And even now I haven't changed - I still fall into a cycle of guilt, humility, faith, pride, and sin over and over. The greater sins I committed when younger return at times to terrorize me, many of which I don't even dare to post about because of the statute of limitations in my country, and a fear of destroying my comfortable life in order to seek a repentence that might only be found in jail. It's disgusting and shows how weak, prideful, and greedy I continue to be even years after the act.
I'm tempted to deceive myself, claim that God isn't real or that no one is going to hell, but He reminds me of the laughable untruth of these statements when I pray or read about one of His saints and am filled with unspeakable knowing and clarity and sweetness that I can't really put into words. If you've experienced it you know what I'm talking about.
If I died tomorrow I would fully expect to be damned, and would agree with the sentence. If God is merciful, and heals my weak heart from its pride before my life ends, I may escape the cycle I am trapped in, but if I continue in my ways as the man I am now I am most likely not going to make it.

[Anonymous No.14886426]

>>14881630
You don't bother about time before your birth so the same you should do with time after your death.

[Anonymous No.14886451]

>>14881630
Follow your religion or, if you're atheist, realise that death is nothing more than a dreamless sleep.

[Anonymous No.14886786]

God has given me divine right, I am immortal and immune

[Anonymous No.14886787]

>>14881630
by leading a purposefully shit life so there's nothing left to live for

[Anonymous No.14886810]

>>14881658
>evidence
Imagine being such an insecure faggot you need evidence.

[Anonymous No.14886881]

>>14883782
I'm alright.

[Anonymous No.14887137]

>>14881630
>he thinks he's mortal

oh boy are you in for a surprise

the ride never ends chap

[Anonymous No.14887141]

>>14887137
proofs?

[Anonymous No.14887369]

>>14881630
Simple. Faith in God

[Anonymous No.14887771]

from your perspective, the moment you die, you reach the heat death of the universe. Trillions of years will go by in an instant, and nothing will be possible anymore

[Anonymous No.14888133]

>>14887369
>coping through religion

existential suicide

[Anonymous No.14888139]

>>14886881
Okay NPC

[Anonymous No.14888216]

>>14881658
Theres no evidence it ends either.
Hume tells us that best evidence is what is immediately experienced. Non existence is literally impossible to experience or even comprehend abstractly. To posit death as the end is more absurd than to assume it isnt

[Anonymous No.14888312]

>>14881630
i rejoice

[Anonymous No.14888712]

>>14881630
You’re a pussy if life’s transience doesn’t embolden you and harden your nature and resolve. Forge yourself in the fire of your will as a testament to the violence and beauty that pervades this world.

[Anonymous No.14888962]

>>14886424
Just knowing that you sinned puts you above many. As long as you honestly seek repentance God will forgive you as he forgives all transgressions.

[Anonymous No.14888977]

>>14881655
This desu
OD'd once and felt my own heart stop briefly and my consciousness slipping away, the endegenous terror was otherworldly in its strength, 100x more terrifying than psychosis or sleep paralysis (both of which i've experienced)
Would not recomend

[Anonymous No.14889016]

>every single second you're a second closer to death

[Anonymous No.14889019]

I grasp for immortality by all means possible.

[Anonymous No.14889057]

I tell myself that humanity will achieve immortality before I die.

[Anonymous No.14889075]

>>14881656
>random Pepe to fit in
>upvotes
>sub

Got tired of Reddit during quarantine?

Jokes aside, literature, especially philosophy, tackles many concepts of this nature, and this is by far the best board for discussing those. People here are (theoretically) better educated and more inclined to think abstractly (thought we know that's not true for the most part) than elsewhere. Also, where else should it go? In the origami board? Just go back already.

[Anonymous No.14889121]

>>14882793

I'll bite.

First question: do animals that are not human have an immortal soul if they do not have consciousness? If so, do they transcend as well?
If not, why do humans? Consciousness was just a genetic odd, a perk in our evolution. Everything that happens in our brain can be explained through chemistry, physics and biology. We are not special. The soul is not a separate thing from our body, it is merely our consciousness and notion of mortality projecting meaning onto ultimately chemical reactions. Once we die, our body ceases to function, and once the chemical reactions cease (and by extension our brain), we cease to feel. There is absolutely no reason why chemical reactions would leave our body or be reborn.

If animals DO transcend (and by extension bacteria, fungi and so on), why? They aren't even conscious to experience it. Plus, life was an improbable odd in the universe, just something that just happened to happen. Why would a random event be programmed to be meaningful?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Pure chance.
Why is there life in the universe? Pure chance.
Why are we conscious and self-aware? Pure chance.

Perhaps there are infinite multiverses out there, each with different outcomes, and all was pure chance. Infinite more didn't even come up into existence. Read ''The Atheist's Guide to Reality'' if you're interested.

Did I change up your mind? Absolutely not. I am not claiming an absolute truth here. This is just why I believe (or rather, disbelieve) in what I believe. If you're happy with your view of life and it brings you confort, go on. You do you man. I'm just answering a question.

On a happier note, this is a Goldilocks universe: we happen to be alive (an incredibly slim odd, but then again, if we feel anything at all it's because we're alive and if we weren't we wouldn't know but anyways) in a vast, beautiful, adequate universe for us. While we're alive we might as well remember the incredibly rare (or not, since everything must exist given infinite universes) chance to be alive, and remember that whatever happens there are bigger, more important things out there, and that at least it all happened and all this beautiful life came to be once, even though it will all be gone and forgotten one day, as is the fate of all things that ever were.

[Anonymous No.14889125]

>>14881630
Getting old, it's what it's there for, you don't want to be alive when you feel like shit all the time, better question is how to cope with losing youthfulness

[Anonymous No.14889168]

>>14881630
>your consciousness is the result of atoms being assembled in this very very specific way
>there's a nonzero possibility of atoms being reassembled in that way again in the future
>your consciousness will probably exist again

We're all going to make it bros

[Anonymous No.14889205]

>>14889121
>chance caused existence

[Anonymous No.14889206]

>>14889121
> Everything that happens in our brain can be explained through chemistry, physics and biology

No? Chemistry and biology are just abstractions, and physics does not in any way predict the existence of consciousness, or explain how it could arise.

[Anonymous No.14889214]

>>14889168
The continuity is what makes you ontologically you though

[Anonymous No.14889226]

>>14881630
Accept there is nothing we can do about it and thinking about it won't change it.

Appreciate the fact that life came into existence at all and that we're experiencing it, appreciating that even if it will come to an inevitable end (as will all things, ever) it existed in the first place. and that the ephemereal beauty of all the lifeforms was a beautiful, albeit short interlude in the history of the universe

Accept that, even if for a short time, once we're gone life will go on. People will still love, birds will still sing, plants will still bloom, the sun will still shine (granted, for a few million or billion years, but that's how long the earth has lasted and would last anyway).

Live a fulfilling life while we're at it, since it is a rare gift.

Accept that death was the same as before we were born, unconsciousness is the natural state of all things and life is a mere interlude; as a bacteria isn't aware it's alive, we will not be aware we are dead, and we are possibly the only beings with a concept of death in the first place to dread it. It will just be an eternal dreamless sleep, and we won't know it when it comes.

And my personal favourite, the only one that actually works in my worst crisis: we are not alone. All those who came before are there. Shakespeare is there. Aristotle is there. Homer (?) is there. Alexander the Great is there. Plato is there. Think of any human ever, they have probably dreaded it same as you (in differing scales, naturally), yet they couldn't evade it, and now they are there. They are not suffering. Rather, they feel nothing at all. Great people, gone. We shall share their fate. Every living thing is united by their final destiny. If they feared it, and are now in it, and are not suffering, we as well shall not shudder before its inevitability. It will get us as it got everyone else.

Lastly, while we're young we naturally fear it. I know I do. I don't know (or rather, don't remember) the feeling. But I theorize (and hope) that as we get older, it shall seem more gentle. We shall slowly but surely accept it and embrace it. Life is merely a timespan for acquainting with death.

[Anonymous No.14889242]

>>14889168
A Boltzmann brain you mean? Not particularly likely. Granted, the chance *is* nonzero, but so so so small it could be discarded. The universe isn't infinite for every combination to happen eventually. Also what's the use of a brain a vacuum? And if it does happen, it probably won't be yours.

[Anonymous No.14889249]

>>14889206
Granted, consciousness is probably one of the biggest mysteries ever. That one's unknown, I'll give you that. What makes something conscious? Why did it come up? Where is it located in the brain or chemisty or physics? Can it be replicated? One thing's sure, it came up at some point in evolution, by chance.
Everything else is chemistry, electrical impulses and biology though.

[Anonymous No.14889254]

>>14889205
Absolutely. Something was bound to happen. It was this. It could have been anything else. There come be nothing rather than something. There is something rather than nothing. It seems obvious that THIS would happen in retrospect and it may feel like it couldn't have happened any other way, but from the start anything could have.

[Anonymous No.14889263]

>>14881630
there is nothing to worry about death. The only concern is what if God exists.

[Anonymous No.14889303]

>>14889263
That's what pascal wager is, exactly what you said except there's more fear involved.

[Anonymous No.14889361]

>>14889226
young-ass bitch
you quickly get acquainted with getting old
the fear of death is takes up most of the rest of your life
you're only human, faggot, just like the rest of us

[Anonymous No.14889854]

>>14886424
Read the parable of the Prodigal Son

[Anonymous No.14889871]

>>14886424
Live out the rest of your life as if you were a Saint.

[Anonymous No.14889911]

>>14884506
>catboy nihilism
based

[Anonymous No.14889917]

>>14889254
Chance isnt a cause

[Anonymous No.14889939]

Being dead is a good thing. The problem is life-facing-death, which is to say, not death itself but the finitude of life. The fact life ends is not the same as death. Death is a state of nonbeing utterly at odds with any state of conscious life, and it is the latter toward which questions of meaning attach.

So how to cope with the finitude of life? Personally I never thought too much of life. I fear dying only to the extent that my biological programming makes it unavoidable. I have no fears about the "void" of nonexistence or the fear that I will have died missing out on something. Death is a blissful reprieve and dying is not the same as being dead.

[Anonymous No.14889963]

>>14881630
live. you dead right now. live before you die again.

[Anonymous No.14890023]

>>14881630
You're supposed to fully realize that and emotionally overcome it at like age 14

If you didn't sorry OP you may be a bit retarded

[Anonymous No.14890071]

>>14881630
i long for it

[Anonymous No.14890079]

>>14881630
I choose to live the life I want, untethered to immortality.

[Anonymous No.14890147]

>>14881630
death is not for the living, don,t worry about it, you're not dying, you never died, you never will.

[Anonymous No.14890375]

>>14881630
personally, i can't wait. nothing really to cope with, just a bit anticipation i guess

[Anonymous No.14890800]

>>14881630
I used to be scared of it, now I don't care of it
(this is my poem about death what do you guys think?)

[Anonymous No.14891314]

Read Heidegger.