Processing our mortality

[The Grand Nudger]

(Wasn't sure if I should put this here or in the Atheism section.)

I think I am one of the few atheists here who still struggles with mortality, and with the concept of impermanence in general.  I've heard the analogies about parties and movies: 'you can still enjoy the [fill in the blank] even though you know it's going to end.'  And, I've heard Hitchens' bittersweet adaptation: 'the party is going to continue, but I have to leave.'  It's all about the experience.  But, I find no solace in these.  

I find no solace in my own acceptance of mortality, either.  It doesn't bother me, I consider every day for years now a borrowed day - but.  

Maybe there is no solace to be had? 

They're decent analogies but they ultimately fail me, because when you leave a party you get to go home; you get to call your mom, watch Netflix, reminisce about it with your husband, and remember how much fun you had (or didn't have).  In these analogies there is still an experience after the experience.  There is still a frame of reference; an internal narrative.

Why should mortality bother me so much?  It seems like most of you guys here have adjusted fine to the idea.  Why can't I?  I think my existential crisis is this: The end of my conscious experience is completely indistinguishable from never having had that experience at all.  The very moment "I" cease to exist, it will literally be as though "I" never existed in the first place.  From "my" POV it will be like time snapping backwards.  It's the ultimate dissolution.  So, why be bothered at all?

Even the party you left, should you never make it home, as it were, is changed by your having been there.  People will tell stories.  Maybe something you build will outlast you (that's where I find my own solace, insomuch as it can be found).   Why be bothered, IDK.  Who knows?  If it isn't a bother in life it won't be in death.  I actually don't know how that question is meaningfully changed with the addition of mortality.  Thjere's no sdolace here, either...since the things we build might be shitty, the stories people tell may be horrible. I remind the geriatrics in my family of that whenever they have an old moment. "The stories I tell about you, will outlive you, so be careful".

I know, I know...once I'm dead I won't know or care about any of this so it's silly to perseverate on it now, but sometimes I feel  like I've been stuck in one of the five stages of grief for years, and I can't get past it.  

So, now you guys tell me to quit being a whiny, depressing, emo-baby and make some dick jokes so I can come back to my sense, okay?  [HEAVY BLACK HEART]️

Stop being a whiny emo baby...this thread is 3 dick jokes shy of quota.  Not just any dick jokes, epic dick jokes...that people will tell stories about.   

Personally, the point of it all, for me, is to build a foundation for a house that can hold and feed and provide for generations of my family. That way, when I'm dead...no matter how much shit my descendants talk about me..they'll be doing so from the comfort of what I left them. Go ahead, talk shit about me on the boat I built. Talk shit about me while you sit at my hearth. Talk shit about me under my roof, eating my food on my land with my children. I won;t be there to give a fuck, but everyhting I leave behind will be giving fucks left right and center. It'll be giving all the fucks, Katie.