How Do You Get Over Death?

[MTL]

For some reason, the "quote" feature is not working for me, so excuse me....I had to do it old school:

" We are quite different on that point.  I see no advantage to having lived.  If I had not, I would not mind at all. "

~ Pyrrho

Well, of course not.  If you had never lived, you wouldn't be able to mind not living.

I have had a lot of pain in my life; more pain than joy, in fact.

But, having lived, my life is glad it existed.

My life has value to itself; even if it was not particularly "advantageous".

I accept if it has no value to anyone else.

And I can accept that it must end.

I find that quite interesting.  My life has been, overall, quite good.  I am very happy with my life at present.  I am happily married, to a woman who loves me, and I am doing well financially.  My health is good, and I enjoy many things.  My life has been better than the vast majority of people alive today, or, indeed, ever alive.  Yet I am not glad that I was born.  I do not see life as an advantage over never having been born.

Ok, I thought about it some more, and here's what I want to say, in response:

I would never tell anyone that their feelings on any issue are "wrong";
you feel what you feel.

but I guess the reason my life is valuable to me is because I can't live anyone else's life.

I can read all the books, I can watch all the movies, I can talk with any number of people
for any number of hours;

but I will NEVER know any human story, as intimately as I know my own.

Even though my story is not a great one,
it is MINE.

No-one else can understand my perspectives, my thoughts, my feelings, as well as I do,
no matter how articulate I am, or how willing I am to share.

No-one else will ever be me.  I can exist only once, and only temporarily.

And I am the only one capable of really appreciating me.

I have often wanted to be inside someone else's head;
either just to understand what they were thinking and feeling,
or for the sake of intimacy; to really know and understand that person;

I have also often been frustrated with the various artistic media that humanity uses,
paint, music, film....because you never know for sure what the artist was TRULY saying;
you might get close, but it will never be EXACT.

Nowadays, we struggle to make technology replicate reality more and more accurately;
look at the use of CGI in movies; and 3D films;

and early video games had NOTHING on the games of today;

and imagine the video games of tomorrow!

(which I personally envision as being something like the "holo-deck" experience
that was depicted on " Star Trek - The Next Generation "
...a virtual reality so convincing, it can mimic physical sensation, scents, sounds, etc.)

But when our technology, and our art, finally succeeds in producing an indistinguishable reproduction of reality
...what will we really have accomplished?

What is better?

Reality?

Or a reproduction of reality so flawless that we can't tell the difference?

Did you ever see the movie, " Being John Malkovich " ?

or the James Cameron movie " Strange Days "?

through different storylines,
both movies explored the possibility of retaining your own consciousness,
but seeing the world from behind someone else's eyes...

....what I took away from that was this:

even if I COULD literally open up your head and pop inside, myself,
and watch you make your own decisions, and listen to your thoughts

....I still wouldn't know what it is really like to BE you.

Only you can know that.

And only I can truly know myself.

It is a very lonely realization.  But a the risk of sounding maudlin, there is a gift woven into it.

If " I think, therefore I am ", then I must appreciate my own consciousness...whatever it is.
Even if there is a lot of pain and loneliness involved.

my life may never be worth a damn thing to the rest of the world,
...and it may not be worth anything at all, even to me, once it stops...
but while I live, it is of incalculable value, to me.

I am really the only company I will ever have;

indeed, it is the only thing I really have, period.