RE: Processing our mortality
July 5, 2017 at 9:49 pm
(This post was last modified: July 5, 2017 at 9:49 pm by bennyboy.)
I think it's perfectly normal that the idea of mortality is very hard to grasp. After all, the sense of self is literally connected to 100% of the world view-- "tree" is a composite of your experiences of tree as a human being. "Love" is a word that you've mapped to your own sensations. Trying to understand a world without the self is like trying to understand a Universe without space and time-- it boggles the brain. In a sense, I think you aren't coming up only against the specific idea of a Universe without you, but the unfathomable paradox of existence-vs-non-existence at all.
At least in my case, I get the terrors when I try to think why there IS anything rather than nothing-- I can't see how anything has arisen-- where did it come from? Where did THAT come from? It feels to me that it shouldn't have-- there should be nothing. Sometimes I'm so convinced of that that I doubt if I myself an an illusion, but still-- how is it that there is something capable of experiencing that illusion? It's boggling in its infinity, but somehow, philosophically, it seems like existence is a mistake-- that it is a fragile thing, a tiny accidental blip, and that I have to hang on to that thread, because there might be nothing else, ever, or even an ever in which something might exist, if I let it go.
I don't know if that makes sense or not-- I don't just feel I'm scared of dying. I'm scared of existence itself disappearing at some point.
At least in my case, I get the terrors when I try to think why there IS anything rather than nothing-- I can't see how anything has arisen-- where did it come from? Where did THAT come from? It feels to me that it shouldn't have-- there should be nothing. Sometimes I'm so convinced of that that I doubt if I myself an an illusion, but still-- how is it that there is something capable of experiencing that illusion? It's boggling in its infinity, but somehow, philosophically, it seems like existence is a mistake-- that it is a fragile thing, a tiny accidental blip, and that I have to hang on to that thread, because there might be nothing else, ever, or even an ever in which something might exist, if I let it go.
I don't know if that makes sense or not-- I don't just feel I'm scared of dying. I'm scared of existence itself disappearing at some point.
