/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21491393]

How can philosophy and literature prepare you for death? I turned 30 this week and I am thinking about the time running out more and more. I realized I have not prepared myself, for my own death or for those of my parents. I read that Democritus prepared himself by visiting tombs and graveyards, but I'm not sure how practical that is.

[Anonymous No.21491402]

watch BBC cuck porn, you'll beg for death afterwords

[Anonymous No.21491414]

>>21491402
Fuck off back to /pol/ you mentally ill freak.

[Anonymous No.21491429]

If you're interested in becoming comfortable with death then reading what will most likely make you suicidal would help.
So philosophers that explain how tragic and awful it is to be alive would be particularly helpful, of which there is a good number.
I prefer the existentialists.
As far as I have gotten with that is that life is suffering, so death would be like a reward and the end of suffering.
The reward gets better the more you suffer.

[Anonymous No.21491436]

>>21491414
I'm not kidding. BBC cuck porn will zap you of your will to live and therefore your fear of death.

[Anonymous No.21491437]

>>21491429
But I actually enjoy life for a myriad of reasons. I have read a few "doomers", I wasn't convinced. I'm worried about getting old and frail, no longer being able to do things I used to or God forbid, losing my mind to dementia or something similar. I also feel like I am completely unprepared for the death of my parents and it will be extremely devastating when it occurs.

[Anonymous No.21491440]

>>21491436
Porn isn't real, get mental health treatment, but first fuck off back to /pol/.

[Anonymous No.21491446]

>>21491440
How can porn be real if our eyes aren't real?

[Anonymous No.21491489]

>>21491446
Kill yourself porn addicted cuck

[Anonymous No.21491499]

>>21491429
Trouble is, the deeper you dive, the more philosophy will convince you that there may be no reward at the end. That's just a way we frame death, but subjectively we really have no idea what happens.

David Lewis is one such case.

[Anonymous No.21491540]

>>21491437
there's a simple fix to having to deal with the death of your parents or getting old yourself.
Euthanasia, or if an understanding friend isn't available I hear drug overdoses are a popular way to go these days.
There's no reason why you have to go through any of it unless you decide to accept the pain of living no matter how bad it feels simply because this is the opportunity for you to know what going blind looks like.

If you insist on having some literature to resolve this dilemma first thing that comes to mind is "On the Shortness of Life" by Seneca.
I actually haven't yet read anyone that deals with becoming weaker. The thing about philosophy is that it's a way of life rather than a set of facts or arguments. Healthy inquiry into your anxieties about you and the people you know beginning to fail physically and mentally before it happens is the main way that is going to be prepared for.

[Anonymous No.21491542]

The pali canon in its entirety
https://americanmonk.org/free-pts-sutta-ebooks/


T 1670B Nāgasena Bhikṣu Sūtra
Part 2: Dialogues

2.63. Aim of Sramanahood

The king asked Nāgasena again. “For what purpose do your people learn the Dharma and become monks?”

Nāgasena replied, “For the purpose of eradicating past suffering, present suffering, and not wanting to experience it again in the future, I learned the Dharma and become a monk.”

“Future suffering has not yet happened, so why do you prepare to learn the Dharma and become a monk?”

Then Nāgasena asked the king, “Are there, great king, rival countries and opponents who might rise up against you?”

“Yes, there are rival countries and opponents who frequently rise up to fight with me.”

“Then, is it when the enemies are coming, that you, great king, set to work to have weapons prepared, watch towers erected, and moats dug, or are they all prepared earlier?”

“All these had been prepared beforehand.”

“But why had they been prepared beforehand?”

“Because the enemies might come at any time.”

“The enemy has not come yet, why do you prepare?”

Nāgasena again asked the king, “Is it when you are hungry, that you then sow, or when you are thirsty, that you then dig a well?”

The king said, “It should be done beforehand.”

Then Nāgasena said, “For a man who is not thirsty, why should he prepare beforehand?”

“Excellent, Nāgasena.”

[Anonymous No.21491622]

>>21491393
Realize that you're not actually as close to death
You can't really count the first 15 or so years of your life as experience, they just sort of happen to you without your input.
So you haven't been living for 30 years, you've only been living for 15, and even then, about 10 of those years was probably spent being pretty retarded and not using your time well. So actually you've only been living for 5 years.
You're 30 now, the amount of things you will do in the next 5 years will be alot, and then 5 years after that.
And you will still be active till about 70, which is like 40 years away, you have a fuckton of time.

[Anonymous No.21491852]

>>21491393
I am currently OK only with accidental death. IMO I dont fear it because both an afterlife and the other option of nothingness and total anihilation of the soul sound soothing. I do prefer and prefer to believe that the Christian afterlife is the real one instead of the other variants, but they dont scare me either.

I have to mention that I didnt have a fear of death before starting to read philosophy, just never thought about it.

[Anonymous No.21491862]

>>21491393

Try Boethius' On the consolation of philosophy

[Anonymous No.21492138]

>>21491622
military grade copium

[Anonymous No.21492152]

>>21491393
do your estate planning

internet search for what it is

[Anonymous No.21492165]

>>21491446
>>21491402
>>21491436
>t.

[Anonymous No.21492175]

>>21491393
>How can philosophy and literature prepare you for death?
It can't and should not. The genre for dealing with death is called religion.

[Anonymous No.21492192]

>>21492138
Uh, yeah, clearly, everyone who likes being alive has to cope with mortality, whereas all the sadfagging /r9k/ refugees have to cope with being alive.
There is no escape from the cope, you just have to choose what you want to cope with.

[Anonymous No.21492202]

>>21491393
>How can philosophy and literature prepare you for death? I turned 30 this week and I am thinking about the time running out more and more. I realized I have not prepared myself, for my own death or for those of my parents
Seneca On Shortness of Life


It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has
been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the
whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no
good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that
it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are
wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad
owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply
long for him who orders it properly.
Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one
man is possessed by greed that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one
man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always
hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all
seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting
danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a
thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in
complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged
by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but
Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of
that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: “The part of life we
really live is small.” For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

[Anonymous No.21492207]

>>21492165
Why do you save this kind of stuff?

[Anonymous No.21492316]

>>21491393
>my own death
why are you so sure about that?

[Anonymous No.21492362]

>>21492207
They need to justify their grandiose ego to themselves by collecting images of those they hate and find inferior, simple as. They’re a real Underground Man type, a supposition I’m absolutely certain of as only the lowest scum would act as they do. Seethe and cope if you see this.

[Anonymous No.21492378]

>>21491542
I meant to read this for a long time. Which translation of the Pali canon is the most easy to understand? I am ESL and not very well read in English. (no translation in my first language, sadly)

[Anonymous No.21492437]

>>21491393
Ironically read the bible or the philosophical works of Ludwig Klages. The way you look at life and death is plebeian.

[Anonymous No.21492568]

>>21492437
>The way you look at life and death is plebeian.
What is a patrician way of looking at life and death? kek

[Anonymous No.21492750]

>>21492437
>plebeian
And believing that you will go to heaven is patrician? Whether it's true or not, it's the simplest, most convenient way of looking at death.

[Anonymous No.21492760]

>>21492437
The Bible is a cope.
I also don't believe a Jewish Rabbi who preached a millenarian doctrine (which was not unique at the time in the Levant, there were many Jews like Jesus with their own little cults around) has magical powers and is the son of God.

[Anonymous No.21493248]

>>21491393
Read Plato, retard. Philosophy is nothing but preparing for death.

[Anonymous No.21493584]

>>21491393
Unironically study NDEs and realize that there actually is an afterlife and that we are eternal and will go to heaven unconditionally when we die. As one NDE researcher said that he does not know anyone who has read the literature on NDEs who has not been convinced by it.

Here is a very persuasive argument for why NDEs are real:

https://youtu.be/U00ibBGZp7o

It emphasizes that NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, and when people go deep into the NDE, they all become convinced. As this article points out:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist

>"Among those with the deepest experiences 100 percent came away agreeing with the statement, "An afterlife definitely exists"."

Since NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, and they are all convinced, then 100% of the population become convinced that there is an afterlife when they have a sufficiently deep NDE themselves. When you dream and wake up, you instantly realize that life is more real than your dreams. When you have an NDE, the same thing is happening, but on a higher level, as you immediately realize that life is the deep dream and the NDE world is the undeniably real world by comparison.

Or as one person quoted in pic related summarized their NDE:

>"As my soul left my body, I found myself floating in a swirling ocean of multi-colored light. At the end, I could see and feel an even brighter light pulling me toward it, and as it shined on me, I felt indescribable happiness. I remembered everything about eternity - knowing, that we had always existed, and that all of us are family. Then old friends and loved ones surrounded me, and I knew without a doubt I was home, and that I was so loved."

Needless to say, even ultraskeptical neuroscientists are convinced by really deep NDEs.

>>21491499
False, because most philosophers writing about death has their head so deeply into the sand, halfway to China, im terms of how they refuse to touch the NDE literature with even a space elevator. The taboo is that strong.

[Anonymous No.21493762]

>>21493584
This poster is cool, but phenomenologically, existentially, we still live — think — feel — act, as if we ARE mortal, our lifespans finite, and as if this finitude is indeed significant, and can’t just be indefinitely ignored or hand-waved away. Even if you admit the afterlife, for instance, perhaps the quality of the afterlife-there is dependent on the development of our own soul (consciousness, inner spirit, “karmic” record) HERE, on how much we developed our souls while alive, and prepared for death.

Hence, the existentialists, and Heidegger on finitude and being-toward-death in “Being and Time,” are still relevant to this fundamental human issue. As are

>Plato’s thoughts on philosophy as preparation for death and dying in the Phaedo
>Buddhist teachings on the impermanence and transitoriness of all created things

If you want to go deeper into the metaphysical and spiritual implications posed by NDEs/OBEs/the existence of an afterlife, Robert Monroe, the OBE-guy, is interesting to read (“Ultimate Journey” and “Journeys Out of the Body”). The Tibetan Buddhists on the six bardos of the afterlife, from the hellish to the purgatorial to the heavenly — all themselves also being ultimately unsubstantial or illusory — and which are themselves simply mirrors/more extreme versions of the states of mind we already cultivate while alive — also give an interesting psychological perspective on this. If you want to get really far out, you could even read Carlos Castaneda’s books on Nagual shamanism, which you may be highly skeptical of, but, with its repeated theme and hammering-in of the significance of death, and using the remembrance of one’s death as an impetus to spiritual “warriorship” — which corresponds amazingly well to Heidegger’s and other existentialists’ ideas of being an existentially authentic, resolute individual — works as beautiful existential fiction at least as good as any novel Camus ever wrote, in my humble opinion.

[Anonymous No.21493854]

>>21491393
I believe that none of it helps, at least not directly. Religion does not help by itself either, but in a similar way it touches on one point that is key to everything: women.
Women are a big problem. You are drawn to women like you're drawn to food or sleep, because your animal brain wants to reproduce as much as it wants to survive, so you're fighting them on a massive handicap.
Whether it's through the direct lust for pussy, and similarly the hatred for pussy one doesn't have, or cannot have, or doesn't want to have because he understands its dangers, women bind all men into this reality (gay men are just misfiring on what constitutes pussy, it's the same shit), and they also create more men to perpetuate this ever-worsening Hell.
I love women, I love 'em so very fucking much. I cannot hate something I know I want, even if I avoid them because they're incredibly harmful, all of them. Even the loveliest one you can find is like a badly radioactive mass that gives you cancer when you hug her close to you.
Now there are men who delude themselves into believing that they're safe from women if they hate them, but their revulsion for them is just a mirror image of my loving lust, which they surely find masochistic. To their unbeknownst, they're equally bound to women as I am, except they believe they're safe.
The path to accepting death is removing women from your mind, being completely neutral toward them, completely defeating your sexual lusts. I know that's the trailhead but I can't get there because there's always a piece of ass or a pair of titties in the way, and more rarely a smile or some other thing that makes me want to impregnate someone.

[Anonymous No.21494074]

>>21491393
Books can not do what you are asking. Is it possible you have failed to achieve commonplace life goals and are experiencing severe regret over your life choices? It so you are the male version of the 40 year old woman who froze her eggs to focus on her career and now realized that was a terrible mistake.

I have not read any of the replies, but since you mention your parents but not a family you have created it leads me to think this. I doubt any of the books recommended here will help. They are no better than the articles women read that explain why they are happy they never had a family, at best they are a cope and do not address the root of the issue. That you have nothing in this world after you die. A long family line will end with you.

Fix that, there is still 10 years before no-hope sets in when you strike 40 and fail to achieve even more common goals.

Hope this helps you anon.

[Anonymous No.21494089]

>>21491393
you don't "prepare yourself" for death you just live and then one day you die

[Anonymous No.21494112]

>>21494074
>Fix that, there is still 5 years before no-hope sets in when you strike 40 and fail to achieve even more common goals.
Not OP but I dread the thought that it can get more no-hope than currently, and I am sure it will, because looking forward in time without the help of a God or something great enough to stand in for it is like balancing yourself on the edge of a gigantic abyss. I am just not aware of the fragment of hope that's still holding me together, and I dread its loss without even knowing where it is.
All of this because I was too thirsty. I let myself get destroyed by pussy, I just put too much of myself into the pussy and the pussy left.

[Anonymous No.21494174]

>>21494112
God is the same, it is a bandage for a greater issue. That is lack of accomplishment, a family. Only a handful of people in millions, I would say damaged/autistic, men can devote their lives to an abstract concept like God and be content and not filled with regret.

A family, raised well, is the only remedy for dread and fear of death. Other things can help and shape the family, but without it, life is torture that grows increasingly painful as you age. For men and women.

>I was too thirsty. I let myself get destroyed by pussy, I just put too much of myself into the pussy and the pussy left.
From this I conclude that you neglected the family, not that you were 'too thirsty', you did the same thing at women do. You rode the carousel and have now ruined your ability to enjoy a family.

It is tough, but it accurately describes the situation. The carousel can be anything, video-games, employment, anything that supplants the typical progression of human beings in going outside, meeting friends, developing meaningful relationships and then finding somebody with whom you can envision raising a family with.

I expect to find receive some diatribe from others about the whoreish behavior of many women. But I counter that video games do the same thing with men. Women don't want a man who plays 40 hours of video games, anymore than a man wants a woman who has had 40 yards of dick.

[Anonymous No.21494193]

>>21491393
Meditate

[Anonymous No.21494194]

>>21493584
>The brain starved of oxygen can provide comforting images
>An out of body experience was unable to spot the large amount of money placed on top of the cupboard right beside the bed.

>Needless to say, even ultraskeptical neuroscientists are convinced by really deep NDEs.
No they aren't. Religious fundamentalists are.

[Anonymous No.21494217]

>>21494174
First, you oversell the concept of family and you know it, because you added the clever caveat of "a family raised well", but what does that mean? You have no control over your family, like you have no control over women.
And that is the point: I did not "ride the carousel" as you described, in any way. I actually focused on the idea of "family". I wanted a long term relationship that would build into something. That's why I invested so much. Everything else like career, entertainment, etc. was all secondary. You really spoke to the wrong individual here because I was ruined by pussy exactly in that way: I gambled a lot of myself into these relationships but because of the Zeitgeist, relationships are fleeting and unstable, and women simply change their minds even if nothing in particular is going wrong, or they cheat on you, or whatever the fuck. Everything in my life was toward achieving that happy life together, but this idea by itself is seen as weak-minded. Ironically, women do not want family-oriented thinking, they want someone who's career-driven or hedonistic, or something else. That's what gets them to complain so much about the men they choose. It was a huge mistake. I got fucked exactly, specifically because I sought your idealized panacea.
Honestly I don't want to be hostile to you but you really fucked up and it looks like you're projecting hard in a way that's very dissonant with how smart you're trying to sound.

[Anonymous No.21494274]

>>21491393
Montaigne wrote an essay on this exact topic. Go check it out.

[Anonymous No.21494293]

>>21494217
>you oversell the concept of family and you know it, because you added the clever caveat of "a family raised well", but what does that mean?
No, I correctly value the family. You undervalue it, perhaps because you do not have one. A family raised well is exactly what it means, one that is raised to a standard better than the others. Without abuse, without undue tragedy and pain. I placed that in there because dumb cunts like to say things like "WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILY THAT ABUSED THEIR KID?! HA CHECKMATE.".

>You have no control over your family, like you have no control over women.
You of course do have immense control on how your family grows. You also need no control of women if you select for traits and virtues you agree with. You have no control over how your garden grows but can easily foster a good environment from which beauty and joy can come from.

>All of this because I was too thirsty.
Thirsty implies pursing for physical attraction, note i do not say beauty as beauty is not skin deep. You chased the wrong woman and were burned, now you have a jaded world view of them. Understandable, but not indicative of a healthy mindset.

>You really spoke to the wrong individual here because I was ruined by pussy exactly in that way
It strikes me that you didn't, only absolute fucking dribblers would refer to women as a collective noun like pussy. Based on the words you're using and the response you gave me, I think you had a relationship that you thought was far greater than it was and were blind to the lackluster affection you were given in return. Again, select for beauty, values and virtues.

>ronically, women do not want family-oriented thinking, they want someone who's career-driven or hedonistic, or something else. That's what gets them to complain so much about the men they choose. It was a huge mistake. I got fucked exactly, specifically because I sought your idealized panacea.
They do, the women you see on tv, media, everywhere else are not indicative of the countless women all over the world who do want that. We are biological creatures, we want the same things we wanted when we left the cave. Because you had a terrible experience does not invalidate what I say. Because you had a bag steak from a sketchy restaurant does not mean all beef is poison.

They want somebody attractive, in decent shape and somewhat clean. They want somebody who can provide, little money and security and they normally want somebody who can lead and make difficult decisions. That is it. Your headcanon is just that, it is in your head.

>Honestly I don't want to be hostile to you but you really fucked up and it looks like you're projecting hard in a way that's very dissonant with how smart you're trying to sound.
I don't want to sound hostile either, but you are literally projecting your own terrible relationship on to an easily obtained situation. You are trying to smart when what I am saying is common knowledge and available anywhere.

[Anonymous No.21494339]

>>21494293
I have the suspicion that you just decided to double down with another load of pretentious drivel, so I won't read your post.

[Anonymous No.21494364]

>>21494339
Cope, seethe, die alone. Your reluctance is sad to witness.

[Anonymous No.21495128]

>>21491393
Read Phaedo.