Life vs Death

[Augusto]

Well, I tried to talk about this stuff on the topic "Suicide" but the discussion took a different direction and I felt too difficult to discuss it there after the testimonies and everything.

So this is the deal... talking rationally, what are the advantages and disadvantages of life and death? For example, life is more dangerous than death... life is fragile and (in most cases) mainly a walk to monotony/sadness/stress park.

Could it be that, objectively, death is better than life?

Guideline: Please don't make your post personal. Try to remain objective, and if you find it difficult, maybe you shouldn't be reading this.

[maritime]

Karl Menninger shared some thoughts in his 1938 book Man Against Himself that were new to me. (I left off reading most of the book that was filled with what I remember to be gruesome details of suicides, including boiling to death and beheading of self.)

...One cannot substitute nothing for something, as Hamlet reflected. ... It may be considered axiomatic that the human mind cannot conceive of non-existence, and hence, however agnostic or skeptical the person contemplating suicide may believe himself to be, his act betrays his belief in some kind of a future life more endurable than his present life. ... ...for some persons no reality, however terrible, is unbearable. ...in suicide there is a self that submits to the murder... No suicide is consummated unless--in addition to the wish to kill and to be killed--the suicidal person also wishes to die. ... Murdering or being murdered entails factors of violence, while dying relates to a surrender of one's life and happiness. ... Suicide...a peculiar kind of death which entails three internal elements: the element of dying, the element of killing, and the element of being killed. ...one is even by and in the act of suicide, master of life and death.

No, death is not better than life. Death stinks. Life has fragrance, possibilities.

[Happy Evolute]

If you are alive you can think about whether it is better to be alive than dead.

If you are dead then you can't.

Score so far:

Life - 1
Death - 0

[Augusto]

Most of the time you're stuck on rutine, boredom... you experience more sadness than joy... you experience fear and disapointments... and at the end you die, which means life is also vain.

Whenever you put it all on a balance, death doesn't seem so terrifying. Why do we hold so hard to keep living? Is it really that awesome? Lots of people dedicate a huge ammount of their life-time watching tv, sleeping and using the computer. Is that "awesome"?

It's obvious that we are conditioned to remain alive and have sex... but we can also evaluate what life can offer us and analyze death. What is it, why are we so afraid of it?

[urs]

Most of the time you're stuck on rutine, boredom... you experience more sadness than joy... you experience fear and disapointments... and at the end you die, which means life is also vain.

Whenever you put it all on a balance, death doesn't seem so terrifying. Why do we hold so hard to keep living? Is it really that awesome? Lots of people dedicate a huge ammount of their life-time watching tv, sleeping and using the computer. Is that "awesome"?

It's obvious that we are conditioned to remain alive and have sex... but we can also evaluate what life can offer us and analyze death. What is it, why are we so afraid of it?

Yep.

Take a walk outside some day when the weather is beautiful and the breeze is blowing and the leaves are changing color and the air smells clean and is maybe even a little cold in your nose and lungs as you inhale it, and marvel that out of the vast size and age of the universe, you exist for this brief moment to uniquely experience that moment that will never occur again. Your molecules, that once belonged to stars and maybe even other planets like ours, and other life forms, have arranged to make you, and when you die, they will rearrange again to make other things. Isn't that nuts? Isn't it absolutely absurd that we even get to exist at all to think about or challenge it?

When or if you struggle to find meaning, or you feel bored, try practicing mindfulness - just being in that moment and appreciating it for what it is - even the bad moments.

[kevin]

you know, urs, your perceptiveness continues to impress me.

just achieving awareness  of your own context in the physical univrrse is a major gift ortlooked by almost evetybody most of tbe time.

too often we skip across the surfaces of our lives unaware of the depths below us, or the ricjness  that context awareness brings to our lives

[urs]

you know, urs, your perceptiveness continues to impress me.

just achieving awareness  of your own context in the physical univrrse is a major gift ortlooked by almost evetybody most of tbe time.

too often we skip across the surfaces of our lives unaware of the depths below us, or the ricjness  that context awareness brings to our lives

Thanks, Kevin.

And I agree. I find that being more mindful has made me...grateful. To be able to feel anything at all is a brilliant miracle of some sort.

I went to buy groceries last night after work, and my feet started to hurt, as I had been standing on them all day, and the floor in the store was largely concrete. I initially felt irritated by it, but then reminded myself that there are people on the planet right this moment that don't even have feet to hurt. Or they are in the process of losing them or severely injuring them. Maybe someone just stepped on a mine. Maybe someone has an untreated infection and is getting gangrene. Maybe there are soldiers fighting in a war somewhere and they will be happy just to survive this minute that I share with them - a minute where I am in complete safety by the sheer luck of the draw. The laws of statistics tell me these things are surely happening to many people, that I share the same minutes with everyone on this planet, and tomorrow and the day after that, while I sit here whining to myself as I walk with my perfectly functional (and safe) body through a literal warehouse of food that I have enough money and resources to purchase for myself and my family, and when I'm done, I will go home to my above par shelter and sleep in a climate controlled room on a fluffy bed next to someone I love dearly with the full knowledge and an almost guaranteed certainty that we will all wake up alive and well-rested and well-fed and educated and healthy and entertained and employed and everything else.

It was easy to forget about my feet after I took all that into consideration.

[Augusto]

It was nice to read you.

My own conclusion was less poetic, and I was waiting for someone to post something worth reading to post it... eitherway, this is what I think:

"Life is an opportunity to 'experience'... death is an unavoidable consequence of life that cannot be experienced; therefore, life is all we have."

As you can see, your way of putting it was way better...! :)

[meAgain]

I think there is so much in life that is awesome and wonderful ? the grandeur of it all alone is something to marvel, but I can honestly say it is the little things that bring me the most joy.  Rainbows and mountains are moving, but not as much as dancing with your spouse in a dingy basement because it is the only place of peace you could find away from the kids  .  Seeing the sunset or vastness of the stars is breathtaking, but not as cool as hearing a 6 year olds description of their first day of school. 

I?m also a big fan of the unexpected.  Suicide would rob someone of that new experience that was just around the corner.  I think sometimes we think we want to be in control and that somehow controlling something is what makes us happy.  To me, the unfolding of each individual?s life story is so cool.  Each and everyone of us has a story.  Suicide would be like stopping before the final chapter.

[Airyaman]

Life might be boring sometimes but death is forever boring. Never anything to do.

[Boots]

Most of the time you're stuck on rutine, boredom... you experience more sadness than joy... you experience fear and disapointments...

(within reason) almost 100% of this is personal choice of either courses of action, or how to react to what life deals you.

and at the end you die, which means life is also vain.

Only if the meaning you have ascribed to your life dies with you.  Again, a personal choice.