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/lit/ - Literature

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5863913 No.5863913 [Reply] [Original]

Mortality of the individual is a taboo in my culture, so I came to this place thinking anonymity would make people more open about the topic. When I contemplate the reality of my own death I often get anxiety/panic thoughts. This happens even if I rationally believe it's silly to even imagine a world without death. I think anyone who fears death has 'forgot/ignored' the fundamental organic nature of humans. It's like if one forgets that he's been born at some point, and imagine men are somehow different from other living beings. I also think: Why would it be wrong to die in itself? Why would people want to live 'more' for? Can anyone recommend books on the topic to expand my view and completely accept death?

>> No.5863930

>>5863913
I used to have panic attacks from thinking about my death. Spent 2 years heavily diving into philosophy looking for answers and now I'm totally fine with it. Almost too much, as I rarely even check before I cross the road anymore.

I spent a lot of time but in reality the resolution to all my woes about death, pain, etc are to be found in Pyrrho, Epictetus, Heraclitus, Zhuangzi, and Bodhidharma - they're all extremely straight forward and the Wikiquote and a few general summaries of them should almost be enough to get that Ataraxia out of them.

>> No.5863939

>>5863930
Thanks m8

>> No.5863959

>>5863930
I have always wondered, why did Freud didn't use the term ataraxia for some key point in his theory? This word encloses a very powerful act.

>> No.5863960

I was taught from childhood that death was the end and that all thoughts of afterlife were mere comforting illusions (parents are atheists, yadda yadda). I was okay with that up until a certain point when I was around 20. I was thinking about death on my own when it struck me. A crushing feeling of being a dust speck in the midst of nothing, that my entire life was close to zero next to an infinite blackness that surrounded it. I cannot describe the feeling without diminsihing it, I was completely afraid of something that was certain. I can say that it was physical though and it turned into a chest pain, a void in the stomach and then I threw up.

The next day and so on, things turned back to normal. It had nothing to do with rational thought, of believing this or that. The true realization of death as the end was shocking. I could not even get back to the sensation, I could remember having it, but I could not access the fear that I had, as if my body rejected it. I thought to myself whether acceptance of death was acceptance of the end or if it had to come associated to some vision of afterlife.

A lot of things happened to me since then, for good and for bad. I don't see death as the end anymore, because I see it as the end of myself. I don't believe my skin is the end of myself, I don't believe myself is the end of the world. It is this strong fear of losing oneself that I had to overcome, I believe. There is this infinite black space surrounding infinitely small particles of light. But there are infinite particles of light.

I'd say life changing experiences allow us to accept death a little bit more. The person I was when I was 20 has died, my childhood has died. As we grow older and have been through more change, we realize that what we think to be the end of the world is just the end of a stage. If you don't move yourself, you'll feel that what you have today is all there is. And you'll feel horrible when thinking of it ending. Don't get attached to it.

"What the caterpillar calls end, the world calls it butterfly"

>> No.5863973

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0mdOvNEUiA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssf7P-Sgcrk

>> No.5863979

>>5863960
Op here. The experience of awareness of mortality you're talking about happened to me first when I was 6 years old. There were 2 episodes binging to full alertness that one day I would've stopped existing, that this was real regarding my own self, and that it would've been inevitable. This caused my first anxiety attack. First was when teacher from school brought our class in graveyard on a national liberation day. Second time was when I was watching tv and they explained how a stroke takes place and the person dies. To this day whenever i deeply think about my death I relieve the same anxiety

>> No.5863985

>>5863960
Death has shocked me many times, but there is comfort in knowing that when you die, you won't be around to appreciate how much it sucks to be dead.

it's like saying to a deaf person "ur gay". it means nothing.

>> No.5863993

>>5863913
The Book on the Taboo against Knowing who You Are - Alan Watts
http://terebess.hu/english/AlanWatts-On%20The%20Taboo%20Against%20Knowing%20Who%20You%20Are.pdf

>> No.5864043

I pretty much life my life with a sarcastic interest in the things I do, but if I was told I was going to die tomorrow I'd feel pretty much indifferent. This isn't edge or teen angst, I just feel like life is way overvalued (for myself anyway) and plus I struggle to enjoy anything except music and so on, which wanes as I get older

>> No.5864065

I'd say read some van Inwagen and Metzinger. When you realize that you don't exist in the first place, death stops being a concern.

>> No.5864588

>Thousands of beasts and men are dead before they are threatened. In truth, what we say we chiefly fear in death is what usually precedes it: pain.

Embrace pain and you won't fear death.

>> No.5864607

>>5863913
The world is too strange and beautiful for me to believe that death is really the end.

>> No.5864683

Irvin D. Yalom would be perfect for you to read i think. Especially this one "Existential Psychotherapy"

>> No.5865148
File: 199 KB, 675x1603, simulated_universe.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5865148

I don't believe the world is real. That something other than my mind should exist seems utterly unnatural to me. I thought about this for more than 25 years now, and I'm quite sure I'm god and the universe is just a dream. I'm afraid of the emptiness should I ever wake up. I will not even be able to scream, I will not be able to die, I will just BE. Oh the horror.

>> No.5865308

>>5864607
lol

>> No.5865320

>>5863913
>When I contemplate the reality of my own death I often get anxiety/panic thoughts

recognize that there is nothing intrinsically bad about dying and you'll be alright

>> No.5865330

Lot of crazies on /lit/

>> No.5865343

When you think about it, we're some of the few few few few few few few people who aren't dead. We're like, that irrational rebellious 0.00001%. We're such a small fraction of humanity if you calculated how many people were dead, it would probably round up to 100% anyways. Also if everyone else can die, so can you. If DFW can put up with death so can you.

>> No.5865894

>>5865343
Nah, you don't understand the magnitude of the population boom humanity experienced in the 20th century, bro:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/fire-in-the-mind/2013/08/11/how-many-people-ever-lived/#.VI9nBSujOSo

A full 6% of all the humans that were ever alive up until today are alive right now.

>> No.5865909

>>5865343
Actually, earth's 7+ billion living people make up about 5-6% of people who have ever lived.

>> No.5865912

>>5865894
>>5865909
jinx XDDDDDD

>> No.5865924
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5865924

>>5865894
>every single male ancestor of yours was successful in breeding
>you were not
>your bloodline ends with you
>your parents will never have grandkids
>they will die dissapointed

>> No.5866017

>>5865924
>implying anyone with an IQ over 100 and a drop of empathy would want to continue life

>> No.5866237

I can only hope that at the time of my death, i will have lived a life worth living, so that when i die i dont care that i wont be alive any longer.

>> No.5866247

>>5866017
why wouldnt they? Why dont you want empathy?

>> No.5866266

>>5865912
>People are so new they don't know what a hivemind is
>xDDDDDD

>> No.5866271

>>5865320
Op here. What's really disturbing for me is the thought that there's no coming back. It's just going forever. Of course one doesn't mind coz he's already dead, but never *being* any longer, never seeing the sky or feeling the breeze and all, this exact thought is like an unavoidable wave of sadness.

>>5865330
I believe not thinking about it at all makes other people 'crazies'

>> No.5866290

>>5866247
Life is ceaseless craving and inconvenience, and I have too much empathy to inflict that upon my own children.

>> No.5866306

>>5866290
lol what you're a retard

>> No.5866500

>>5866306
It is better not to have been born.

>> No.5866521

>>5865148
I'm the same way, although it'd be more accurate to say that I doubt that the world is real, or at least, that it bears any resemblance to what I perceive.

Can you recommend me any good books or essays on the subject? Unless you can't be bothered, because I'm just a figment of your imagination, or vice versa.

>> No.5866522

You're mistaking morality for ethics, OP.

>> No.5866805

>>5866500
i cant handle your faggotry. There are billions of people. they would be better off dead.

If nobody were ever born, then we wouldnt suffer. If there was no life, there would be no suffering. If nothing existed life would be so much better.

Enjoy That.

>>5866522
They go hand in hand.

>> No.5866864

>>5866805
You call me a faggot then agree with what I said?

>> No.5866882

>>5866864
you made one idiotic statement, and i disagree.

i didnt agree with you. i simply stated that ethics and morality go hand in hand. Your sentence implied that they were mutually exclusive.

>> No.5866894

>>5866882
I'm the guy who said it is better not to have been born.

>> No.5866919

imo you don't need a book to reinforce that. death is inevitable and people throw their weight around like it isn't. death is like puberty, in the natural progression of the human being. like a cosmic, utterly unknown puberty. it'll change us completely, forever

kind of exciting to be honest

>> No.5866943

Death is cool in that it reminds you that people are nothing much. Alexander the Great is dead. Genghis Khan is dead. Hitler is dead. Someday there will probably be a guy who takes control of everything, and a little while after that he will be dead too. And eventually everyone will be dead, there's no escaping it. But nobody wants to accept it, the modern western culture promotes the notion that you should enjoy all your life by consuming this and that and you should want to live on and keep consuming. Other cultures have had their own ways of working through this problem, many in history have achieved state in which death is exalted for one reason or another. In modern christian doctrines you propitiate the messiah with good faith and good works in the hope that you has chosen to prevent your eternal death. Regardless of how you deal with it, in the end Everything Must Go and every aspect of our being-in-the-world will just shut up shop.

>>5863930

>Pyrrho, Epictetus, Heraclitus, Zhuangzi, and Bodhidharma

good reading list.

>> No.5866958

>>5866290
>>5866500
life is endless suffering, but that suffering is beautiful and worthwhile.

>> No.5867059

>>5866894
yes, and you are an idiot.

>> No.5867105

>>5866521

I'm not the anon you responded to, anon, but what you're looking for is "La secte des égoïstes" by Eric Emmanuel Schmidt. Unfortunately for you my monolingual friend (I'm presuming), to my knowledge, it has not been translated into English.

>> No.5867138

>>5867105
No English, but there's a Spanish version, so thanks! Depending on the nature of my existence, you have god's blessing.

>> No.5867195

>>5866958
Explain how it is worthwhile please.

>> No.5867237

>>5867195
explain how its not, you flaming homosexual.

not that anon by the way

>> No.5867255
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5867255

>>5863913
You only think you're thinking about death, but you are not. You're thinking of the flawed concept of death you have. Actual death is featureless and can't be thought about.

Whenever you are scared of the death you think of, realise you are not actually thinking of death. Realise that you are only scared of your thoughts.

>> No.5867262

>>5867237
1. When you bring a life into the world, it is guaranteed to suffer, be inconvenienced, and crave. - Dukhha basically.

2. When someone is not born, they do not exist. There is no one to exist to experience being withheld pleasures in existence. (this is a counter to the accusation of asymmetry and focus on suffering of the argument)

3. Therefore, since we suffer when we exist, and do not when we don't, it is better never to have been born.

>> No.5867268

What culture, OP?

>> No.5867274

>>5867262
"BAAWWW I STUBBED MY TOE!! I WISH I WAS DEAD. " thats whwat you sound like

>> No.5867292

>>5867262
>Le antinatalism face

But I kind of agree with you, in places like Somalia or some other shitholes where people are more or less born to suffer horribly through a very short life and then die, then I agree that it would be better to not have them be born at all.
But come on son, when you have kids in a 1st world country and you can give them a nice life then there's no reason to not have them, there are still risks, but going full retard with pessimism never helped anyone.

>> No.5867302

>>5867274
Thanks for the reply... but you're not invalidating my argument.

Stubbing toes and coexisting with double digit IQ imbeciles such as yourself are not desirable, and I could have been spared both had my parents been a little more forward thinking.

>> No.5867312

>>5866943
le act 5 scene 1 face

>> No.5867316
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5867316

>>5867262

>> No.5867326

>>5867302
im sorry for causing you such unbearable suffering. Killing yourself seems like a reasonable escape from my idiocy. Or maybe it was best if you were never born.

the world may never know.

>> No.5867333

>>5867292
I've lived in a developed country my whole life, and so have all my friends, including the ones that killed themselves. Why do you think potential pleasure balances out potential torment?

>> No.5867336
File: 94 KB, 1435x478, smug pepe advice.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5867336

>>5863913
Pic related, wisest thing I've read on the four channels.

>> No.5867343

>>5867262
Eh, lack of suffering is just as good as lack of pleasure is bad - that is to say not at all.
Schopenhauer was right in saying that to examine pleasure vs suffering you have to look at an animal killing and eating another animal. Who's feeling the stronger feeling? The suffering or the happy?

Still, if you can manage to be happy it's better than never having been born.

>> No.5867352

>>5867333
Why did your friends killed themselves though, and why are you kinda suicidal but not there yet?
And I think that if you can lower the odds of potential suffering happening then everything's alright.

>> No.5867353
File: 2.12 MB, 1930x2400, Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee 1633.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5867353

the Bible

>> No.5867358

>>5867343
How so? There is no me to be deprived of happiness should I not be born. But I very much full and well experience the suffering when if I AM to come into existence.

>> No.5867362

>>5867326
Dude that retarded sperg has been talking down his greasy nose speculating about the IQ he's never had tested whining about anti-natalism for like at least 8 months. He is the most pathetic poster on this board. Do not reply to him other than to remind him statistically no one alive cares, and he should just kill himself.

>> No.5867379

>>5867362
why does he exist?

>> No.5867431
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5867431

>>5863913
Read Marcus Aurelius' meditations, OP. The whole thing is basically about accepting death with the compliance of a fallen fig to the Nature of its inevitable decay. It seems like he had an obsession with coming to terms with it.

Well then again, his meditations weren't entirely devoted to the concept of meeting death, but he couldn't resist dropping it into the conversation even when it had nothing to do with whatever he was talking about. You're guaranteed to see his thoughts on death at least twice every page, I guarantee you.

The book is short, easy and accessible too - it's formatted in numbered entries that are never more than two pages long. (At least the version in pic related)

I highly recommend it for your situation, OP.

Pic related

>> No.5867438

>>5867379
because he hasn't killed himself yet

>> No.5867464

>>5867438
so he is proactively perpetuating his suffering by allowing himself to remain alive?

I wonder why he would do this?

>> No.5867472

>>5867464
And there you have it. Makes him look like he doesn't even believe in his beliefs enough and is a walking contradiction. I wonder what that sort of cognitive dissonance does to someone.

>> No.5867484

>>5867472
he's just a bodhisattva trying to prevent the suffering of other souls before he allows himself sweet release

>> No.5867489
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5867489

>>5867472
That sort of Cognitive dissonance, you'd think it'd make someone want to kill themselves?

>> No.5867514

>>5867484
I'll admit, though, that contraception is taking a risk on whoever you bring into the world. Of course you'll have to face both pleasure and pain - both the absence of the other - but if you know how to deal with pain, then you're all good. I for one do not blame my parents for bringing me into this world. I quite enjoy it, but I just happened to score lucky and happened to find ways to derive pleasure and enlightenment from displeasure.

I'd rather experience pain, and subsequently pleasure, in the absence of pain than not experience it at all. Then again, if I was never born then my conscious experience would never have thought of this, so it's a bit of a useless effort to talk about from the perspective of never having been born, isn't it?

>> No.5867538

>>5867514
Have you ever been tortured?

>> No.5867540

>>5867514
No, but I never said I could find pleasure in that. Maybe a little in the relief of not being tortured, but there'd be too much anxiety of the next torture session for that brief relief to mean anything. Also, I might be really sore and hungry and thirsty. I'd probably kill myself, then.

>> No.5867545

>>5867540 this was meant for >>5867538 you, woops

>> No.5867578

>>5867540
Maybe "natalists" would alter their stance on life, were they to be tormented in one way or another.

>> No.5868855

That same journey from death to life, which you once made without suffering or fear, make it again from life to death. Your death is a part of the order of the universe; it is a part of the life of the world.

>> No.5868890

>>5868855
these people never stop

>> No.5868954

enter the void is a nice film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKRxDP--e-Y