Help me I'm watching myself die in time/my life is going by as I blink my eyes.
May 8, 2012 at 10:07 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2012 at 10:18 pm by constantgamer247.)
So i'm currently very troubled with the thought of death. Well certain aspects of it more so than others.
I first had this fear when I was about 12, my best friend had moved to Boston the year before. Far enough away that we were no longer on the same street, but we could take just a 3hr train ride to visit him. So he came to visit me once when I was 12, and I rode the train back with him, dropped him off and then had to return home; the entire way home I cried and cried at the realization of how short my life is, how fast it was going and the fact that I would be old, and dead before I knew it. My parents sent me to church as a child as free baby sitting so I resorted to Christianity for comfort. That lasted several years before I went back to being atheist.
When life is going well and i'm enjoying it I don't think about it at all and I take power from being atheist. It is verify comforting to be an atheist when you are having a good day. It seems reassuring to think you know reality. Yet at critical moments in my life my fear of death crops up.
I've been attending a community college, from which I'll graduate in a week. Next fall I'll be at a University to do 2 more years for a 4 year computer science degree. Soon I'll be out in the real world. I'm going to blink and school will be over. Currently I live at home with a mum dad and sister. I have the best life, had the best childhood, love every day that I am alive (so don't worry I'm never going to intentionally kill myself)
Yet when I step back and look at my life in the grand scheme of the universe, in the vastness and infinity that is time and space; I see how much of a blip I am, and how insufficient my life truly is. I don't see how I am any more special than a beetle, or a fish, or a tiger, or a panda, or any of the other creatures on this earth, or any other form of life that has every poped into existence on any other planetary surface.
Yesterday I was in 1st grade and my teacher was asking me to write out my ABCs 2x, and it was the biggest challenge/most difficult task I had encountered in my life. Now my grandparents are both 68 and wont be around much longer. Too soon I will be in there shoes. Before I know it I'll be dead, and when I am I wont even know it/wont remember it. I love being alive. I never want to die, yet eternal life is equally insane. It is equally as difficult to contemplate infinity and eternity. The saddest part is that all my memories, which are just chemical reactions will soon one day cease to be.
Thinking about the eternity before I was born, and the eternity that will exist after after I die is maddening. I need to find some comfort with death so I can live in the here and now while it is here and while I am young (i'll be 20 in 2 months).
I currently don't know what to think. I guess it's calming thinking that no matter how I die or when it'll all be the same, I wont know that I'm dead/I'll cease to be like before I was born. It makes being here and now more important. The fact that I am alive now in this corner of the universe is amazing. Carl Sagan said it best, cant remember his exact quote but it went something like; in the vastness and infinity that is time and space I am happy to have known his wife and had his life for the brief amount of time I did.
Currently I see myself turning to Buddhism, for comfort for relief, for a way to find meaning, to enjoy the here and now and not dwell on the past and future that I am not guaranteed, to respect life, to enjoy being vegetarian/see that as positive+meaning/and to live longer. Also I want more meaning than to just be here to serve more of a purpose than to be born, grow and carry DNA for a generation, survive (which is point less because modern medicine has eliminated natural selection in the human species) procreate/pass on my DNA, grow old, die off, cease to exist. I have so much to live for, my friends and family. These thoughts make me not care at all about anything material; I got nice new metal brushed Samsung memory cards almost a week ago (maybe 5 days ago) and have not opened them as I'm too depressed over the fact that; one day i'll never know they existed at all.
I wonder so much and it troubles my mind.
A lot of the universe troubles my mind. Like the infinite monkeys theory; if you put an infinite amount of monkeys in a room with an infinite amount of type writers and give them an infinite amount of time, they will eventually type out the words of Shakespeare. So given an infinite universe/multiverse/reality/what ever the biggest conceivable room or space is, and given an infinite amount of matter an infinite amount of time; then wont matter reassemble itself into the same exact configuration that is me, my life and knowing and take the same exact path/have the same exact life again?
My friend who is here with me now poses an interesting question/devils advocate, throwing an infinite amount of sand which ingredients at the wall for an infinite amount of time. Will it eventually yield a perfect sand which? We are defining a perfect sand which as the configuration you would arrange sand which parts into to eat.
I've been listening to a yogi online and he gave me some good insight. Do not believe as belief is death, once you make an assumption you see only to confirm your assumption and you shut yourself off from the truth. So in that sense telling me there is a god, what good does it do? Nothing. We can only know what we have perceived. Until we have perceived it we do not know.
Also one more note, I was saying about turning to Buddhism, i've been meditating to calm my mind. The other day while meditating I fell into a state where I was a snake. Not sure what kind, but I'de say from my actions I was a Garter snake or something insignificant. I was slithering through the grass hunting (it felt like head way flying, yet I still had a body that propelled me from on the ground and it was not a feeling of flying like you get from being up in a high place in a dream, I felt low to the ground and I moved through grass), traveling in and out of my burrow/home, as a snake. My perception was a snake, my form was a snake my thought process was a snake, I had always been a snake like you think right now that you have always been a human/it's your only perspective.
(Also a note, im sober, im not crazy, and im not new to meditation; been doing it for years but this "I was a snake revelation" was recent).
Even as a child though I thought I should have been born as an Asian child as all my friends were Asian, I connected with them and their culture better, and I could eat with chop sticks perfectly 4 years before I learnt how to use a knife and fork. I wonder if my underlying mental connection to Asians was a hint at a past life or just a coincidence. The community I grew up in was 99% white. We had 2 black kids at my school who were brothers, and ~5 Asian kids. No one other than whites.
Yet the literature i've been reading suggests other wise. I've been reading a book called "You are Not so Smart" by David McRaney (http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-So-Sma...1592406599) and it's describing how everything is programmed into me as I'm an organism and how humans draw conclusions and make assumptions when in reality things just are coincidental, we just have the inconvenience of humans to seek meaning where there is none and connect dots that have no connects. It's also a great book on your psychology and how and why you think the way you do. Drunkards walk by Leonard Mloidno (http://www.amazon.com/The-Drunkards-Walk...0375424040) is also great at explaining how nothing in life is random. If anyone else has any other good literature for me I'de like it/I'm open to reading it.
I know this post is long, ranting and unorganized, probably full of spelling errors, and difficult to respond to, but so are my thought at this time; so I'll number my main questions to ease your responses. My mind is on fire and in about as much order as this post. Please help. I've talked to a few people about this in the past few days and cried openly in front of my parents. I also cried to them when I was 12 and had this panic attack the first time. Another friend lent me a book called Remember, Be here now by Ram Dass (http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Here-Now-...737&sr=8-1) Very good/helpful book but I cry at the fact I'll be mute to it one day.
Concrete Questions:
1) Can anyone offer any consolation/comfort?
2) Should I just give up to the mystery of life and just accept it for what it is?
3) What is healthy to question about life, the universe and everything; and what should I just accept?
4) I know my mind has dark partitions. How can I live with these and use them to my advantage?
5) How can I live here now?
6) How fast has your life gone on a scale of 1 - 10, 1 being slow 10 being fast.
8) What is important to you in your life, and how do your beliefs, views, thoughts or openness determine that?
9) What purpose do you see that you have other than passing on DNA?
10) Does it make you sad to think that one day you will be mute to this earth and all it's beauty and ugly ness, joys and sorrows, good and bad ect...? Or do you use it to your advantage and how?
11) What is the past and future? Are they not real? Does the human mind make them up and the only moment that has ever actually existed is the present. Yet we know of people who have lived before us that are no longer perceiving at this moment.
Philosophical Questions:
12) What do you think about the Infinite Monkeys theory?
13) We love our friends and families, but in reality are they not just
physical beings too?
14) Why was I born as me, here during this moment during the vastness and infinity that is time and space. Why not some other planet at some other time in some other form? Why am I conscious to begin with? Why not another form on this same planet? (I'm assuming that if life happened here it'll happen somewhere else)
15) *Last out of place concrete question because it fits in with the above one* Why does life form? Why does life grow? I could understand a universe or reality where all matter is inorganic/inanimate but why does matter want to grow and assemble into organic living things? Is it the nature of the Universe/Multiverse. I remember there being an answer to this but I cant find it, maybe I imagined it.
16) We can not live until we are prepared to die (A yogi's thought). Do you think I should over come my fear of death now! and get on with life, or forget it and go about life? I think I'll find more meaning if I ponder this and am able to emotionally and mentally conquer this fear.
PreInfo for rest of Questions) So, I think there for I am... that is how we determine that we are really here now and sentient beings, not brains in vats. So just think for a minute... what does our thinking? Our brain. Once our brain decomposes or like the time before we had a brain we no longer think, we no longer are. We never knew that we didn't know for all of eternity before birth, and we will soon never know we don't know for the rest of eternity.
17) So do we cease to exist? All our memories, all our experiences wiped out; gone forever. Like we never existed, and we will never know that we never existed. Non existence is perplexing to ponder.
18) Even if we do have other forms and other lives and we pass from one to another learning the same lessons over and over until we reach Nirvana. Am I going to die in this from and be dead to everything I knew from this form? Science tells us that memories are stored in our brains which I went into the I think there for I am above. So the chemical reactions storing my past actions are a physical thing. Even if there is a spirit, soul, something immaterial that moves on when we die will it know of this life? Will it be able to unlock these memories like people say they unlock past lives? Or are we dead in the ground and unknowing to all/in a state of non existence?
19) I could die in a minute, an hour, a week, a month, during wisdom tooth surgery, a year, a decade, two decades,during a future kidney transplant to my sister who was born with one kidney to save her life, half a century from now; or on my 100th birthday, and it'll all be the same passing where ever I go if I go on. In this aspect are we dead right now? Or is the only moment now and have we always been alive, are eternal? (involves thinking about time, is it real, the acknowledgement of past and future.) We will be old, sick or dying before we know it, and once we're dead to this form we won't know it. It'll be over in the blink of an eye, and again; we won't know it? Like I said yesterday I was a kid, I blinked and now I'm here and almost 20 with a full beard T_T
20) After thinking about question 19, Why do humans want to live? why do we struggle and cling on put so much effort into life if we are all going to die and be in the same boat?
21) Is the human mind not meant to comprehend eternity? Do we not live forever as we would not ever understand it. I mean think of it as a number or as a time period or as an abstract thing. It's so difficult to get your brain around. The concept of a moment or instant or point or now is easier to understand; a period of time or space so short that no time or space passes at all.
22) Does anyone else feel trapped in time? Trapped in life and this reality? Like you are plopped into a situation where ceasing to exist is the only way out? That we are not here for what we think we are hear for. Maybe we are here only to pass on life and DNA and living is a torture we must endure for a very very short amount of time. So all we can do is make that torture as comfortable as possible?
23) No matter how painful death is or if we die in our sleep... we won't know. This is puzzling but is it also a good thing. We probably wont know or remember how we died.
24) Does thinking about the fact that you will die one day and could be mute to this form, all of your efforts, actions and memories scare you into the impermanence of your surroundings? I think of this and suddenly it seems like nothing is really here, and that I can't grab onto anything or there is nothing to hold tight to.
I have some many other questions but I feel like this post is already lengthy enough, it's getting late and my mind is straying into dark places as I edit this (wrote this over the spawn of my day; reason why my friend was with me earlier but not now) I question and wonder reality. And is this realm that I am perceiving now the real true one? It seems so strange to be on this earth in this form. If you think about it from outside of yourself; the earth seems very very alien like. I mean, humans? WHAT? Where in science Fiction did this being/form arise. Japanese people and anime? what strange things. Canadians and Eskimos? WHAT? British people, Indian people and TEA? The entire continent of Australia and all of it's life. The entire country of Africa (joking continent) and all it's life. Giraffes and Gorillas. Sheep, and woolen knitted socks? Where does something like this arise in time and space? Everything on earth is so strange. Why do we as humans think we are anything special or different from anything else?
What do Buddhists say about the human form?
Again this entire post. Is just a debate to calm my mind and past of my journey on/to seek enlightenment. Like I said above; what good does it do me if you just tell me that I am correct, that I am right, that there is a god, that there is an after life. So what I fell better. I do not know. Belief will only block me from knowing the truth. I need to be exposed to uncomfortable views and beliefs. Thoughts I might not like, that are challenging and make me think. That give me shift in perspective and open my eyes to the truth. So I look more for debatable answers than Yes or now answers. And I appreciate your time for reading my long post and taking the time to respond.
I look forward to tomorrow where I can read all of your responses and debate with all of you. Until then sleep tight and remember; we are alive only now.
I first had this fear when I was about 12, my best friend had moved to Boston the year before. Far enough away that we were no longer on the same street, but we could take just a 3hr train ride to visit him. So he came to visit me once when I was 12, and I rode the train back with him, dropped him off and then had to return home; the entire way home I cried and cried at the realization of how short my life is, how fast it was going and the fact that I would be old, and dead before I knew it. My parents sent me to church as a child as free baby sitting so I resorted to Christianity for comfort. That lasted several years before I went back to being atheist.
When life is going well and i'm enjoying it I don't think about it at all and I take power from being atheist. It is verify comforting to be an atheist when you are having a good day. It seems reassuring to think you know reality. Yet at critical moments in my life my fear of death crops up.
I've been attending a community college, from which I'll graduate in a week. Next fall I'll be at a University to do 2 more years for a 4 year computer science degree. Soon I'll be out in the real world. I'm going to blink and school will be over. Currently I live at home with a mum dad and sister. I have the best life, had the best childhood, love every day that I am alive (so don't worry I'm never going to intentionally kill myself)
Yet when I step back and look at my life in the grand scheme of the universe, in the vastness and infinity that is time and space; I see how much of a blip I am, and how insufficient my life truly is. I don't see how I am any more special than a beetle, or a fish, or a tiger, or a panda, or any of the other creatures on this earth, or any other form of life that has every poped into existence on any other planetary surface.
Yesterday I was in 1st grade and my teacher was asking me to write out my ABCs 2x, and it was the biggest challenge/most difficult task I had encountered in my life. Now my grandparents are both 68 and wont be around much longer. Too soon I will be in there shoes. Before I know it I'll be dead, and when I am I wont even know it/wont remember it. I love being alive. I never want to die, yet eternal life is equally insane. It is equally as difficult to contemplate infinity and eternity. The saddest part is that all my memories, which are just chemical reactions will soon one day cease to be.
Thinking about the eternity before I was born, and the eternity that will exist after after I die is maddening. I need to find some comfort with death so I can live in the here and now while it is here and while I am young (i'll be 20 in 2 months).
I currently don't know what to think. I guess it's calming thinking that no matter how I die or when it'll all be the same, I wont know that I'm dead/I'll cease to be like before I was born. It makes being here and now more important. The fact that I am alive now in this corner of the universe is amazing. Carl Sagan said it best, cant remember his exact quote but it went something like; in the vastness and infinity that is time and space I am happy to have known his wife and had his life for the brief amount of time I did.
Currently I see myself turning to Buddhism, for comfort for relief, for a way to find meaning, to enjoy the here and now and not dwell on the past and future that I am not guaranteed, to respect life, to enjoy being vegetarian/see that as positive+meaning/and to live longer. Also I want more meaning than to just be here to serve more of a purpose than to be born, grow and carry DNA for a generation, survive (which is point less because modern medicine has eliminated natural selection in the human species) procreate/pass on my DNA, grow old, die off, cease to exist. I have so much to live for, my friends and family. These thoughts make me not care at all about anything material; I got nice new metal brushed Samsung memory cards almost a week ago (maybe 5 days ago) and have not opened them as I'm too depressed over the fact that; one day i'll never know they existed at all.
I wonder so much and it troubles my mind.
A lot of the universe troubles my mind. Like the infinite monkeys theory; if you put an infinite amount of monkeys in a room with an infinite amount of type writers and give them an infinite amount of time, they will eventually type out the words of Shakespeare. So given an infinite universe/multiverse/reality/what ever the biggest conceivable room or space is, and given an infinite amount of matter an infinite amount of time; then wont matter reassemble itself into the same exact configuration that is me, my life and knowing and take the same exact path/have the same exact life again?
My friend who is here with me now poses an interesting question/devils advocate, throwing an infinite amount of sand which ingredients at the wall for an infinite amount of time. Will it eventually yield a perfect sand which? We are defining a perfect sand which as the configuration you would arrange sand which parts into to eat.
I've been listening to a yogi online and he gave me some good insight. Do not believe as belief is death, once you make an assumption you see only to confirm your assumption and you shut yourself off from the truth. So in that sense telling me there is a god, what good does it do? Nothing. We can only know what we have perceived. Until we have perceived it we do not know.
Also one more note, I was saying about turning to Buddhism, i've been meditating to calm my mind. The other day while meditating I fell into a state where I was a snake. Not sure what kind, but I'de say from my actions I was a Garter snake or something insignificant. I was slithering through the grass hunting (it felt like head way flying, yet I still had a body that propelled me from on the ground and it was not a feeling of flying like you get from being up in a high place in a dream, I felt low to the ground and I moved through grass), traveling in and out of my burrow/home, as a snake. My perception was a snake, my form was a snake my thought process was a snake, I had always been a snake like you think right now that you have always been a human/it's your only perspective.
(Also a note, im sober, im not crazy, and im not new to meditation; been doing it for years but this "I was a snake revelation" was recent).
Even as a child though I thought I should have been born as an Asian child as all my friends were Asian, I connected with them and their culture better, and I could eat with chop sticks perfectly 4 years before I learnt how to use a knife and fork. I wonder if my underlying mental connection to Asians was a hint at a past life or just a coincidence. The community I grew up in was 99% white. We had 2 black kids at my school who were brothers, and ~5 Asian kids. No one other than whites.
Yet the literature i've been reading suggests other wise. I've been reading a book called "You are Not so Smart" by David McRaney (http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-So-Sma...1592406599) and it's describing how everything is programmed into me as I'm an organism and how humans draw conclusions and make assumptions when in reality things just are coincidental, we just have the inconvenience of humans to seek meaning where there is none and connect dots that have no connects. It's also a great book on your psychology and how and why you think the way you do. Drunkards walk by Leonard Mloidno (http://www.amazon.com/The-Drunkards-Walk...0375424040) is also great at explaining how nothing in life is random. If anyone else has any other good literature for me I'de like it/I'm open to reading it.
I know this post is long, ranting and unorganized, probably full of spelling errors, and difficult to respond to, but so are my thought at this time; so I'll number my main questions to ease your responses. My mind is on fire and in about as much order as this post. Please help. I've talked to a few people about this in the past few days and cried openly in front of my parents. I also cried to them when I was 12 and had this panic attack the first time. Another friend lent me a book called Remember, Be here now by Ram Dass (http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Here-Now-...737&sr=8-1) Very good/helpful book but I cry at the fact I'll be mute to it one day.
Concrete Questions:
1) Can anyone offer any consolation/comfort?
2) Should I just give up to the mystery of life and just accept it for what it is?
3) What is healthy to question about life, the universe and everything; and what should I just accept?
4) I know my mind has dark partitions. How can I live with these and use them to my advantage?
5) How can I live here now?
6) How fast has your life gone on a scale of 1 - 10, 1 being slow 10 being fast.
8) What is important to you in your life, and how do your beliefs, views, thoughts or openness determine that?
9) What purpose do you see that you have other than passing on DNA?
10) Does it make you sad to think that one day you will be mute to this earth and all it's beauty and ugly ness, joys and sorrows, good and bad ect...? Or do you use it to your advantage and how?
11) What is the past and future? Are they not real? Does the human mind make them up and the only moment that has ever actually existed is the present. Yet we know of people who have lived before us that are no longer perceiving at this moment.
Philosophical Questions:
12) What do you think about the Infinite Monkeys theory?
13) We love our friends and families, but in reality are they not just
physical beings too?
14) Why was I born as me, here during this moment during the vastness and infinity that is time and space. Why not some other planet at some other time in some other form? Why am I conscious to begin with? Why not another form on this same planet? (I'm assuming that if life happened here it'll happen somewhere else)
15) *Last out of place concrete question because it fits in with the above one* Why does life form? Why does life grow? I could understand a universe or reality where all matter is inorganic/inanimate but why does matter want to grow and assemble into organic living things? Is it the nature of the Universe/Multiverse. I remember there being an answer to this but I cant find it, maybe I imagined it.
16) We can not live until we are prepared to die (A yogi's thought). Do you think I should over come my fear of death now! and get on with life, or forget it and go about life? I think I'll find more meaning if I ponder this and am able to emotionally and mentally conquer this fear.
PreInfo for rest of Questions) So, I think there for I am... that is how we determine that we are really here now and sentient beings, not brains in vats. So just think for a minute... what does our thinking? Our brain. Once our brain decomposes or like the time before we had a brain we no longer think, we no longer are. We never knew that we didn't know for all of eternity before birth, and we will soon never know we don't know for the rest of eternity.
17) So do we cease to exist? All our memories, all our experiences wiped out; gone forever. Like we never existed, and we will never know that we never existed. Non existence is perplexing to ponder.
18) Even if we do have other forms and other lives and we pass from one to another learning the same lessons over and over until we reach Nirvana. Am I going to die in this from and be dead to everything I knew from this form? Science tells us that memories are stored in our brains which I went into the I think there for I am above. So the chemical reactions storing my past actions are a physical thing. Even if there is a spirit, soul, something immaterial that moves on when we die will it know of this life? Will it be able to unlock these memories like people say they unlock past lives? Or are we dead in the ground and unknowing to all/in a state of non existence?
19) I could die in a minute, an hour, a week, a month, during wisdom tooth surgery, a year, a decade, two decades,during a future kidney transplant to my sister who was born with one kidney to save her life, half a century from now; or on my 100th birthday, and it'll all be the same passing where ever I go if I go on. In this aspect are we dead right now? Or is the only moment now and have we always been alive, are eternal? (involves thinking about time, is it real, the acknowledgement of past and future.) We will be old, sick or dying before we know it, and once we're dead to this form we won't know it. It'll be over in the blink of an eye, and again; we won't know it? Like I said yesterday I was a kid, I blinked and now I'm here and almost 20 with a full beard T_T
20) After thinking about question 19, Why do humans want to live? why do we struggle and cling on put so much effort into life if we are all going to die and be in the same boat?
21) Is the human mind not meant to comprehend eternity? Do we not live forever as we would not ever understand it. I mean think of it as a number or as a time period or as an abstract thing. It's so difficult to get your brain around. The concept of a moment or instant or point or now is easier to understand; a period of time or space so short that no time or space passes at all.
22) Does anyone else feel trapped in time? Trapped in life and this reality? Like you are plopped into a situation where ceasing to exist is the only way out? That we are not here for what we think we are hear for. Maybe we are here only to pass on life and DNA and living is a torture we must endure for a very very short amount of time. So all we can do is make that torture as comfortable as possible?
23) No matter how painful death is or if we die in our sleep... we won't know. This is puzzling but is it also a good thing. We probably wont know or remember how we died.
24) Does thinking about the fact that you will die one day and could be mute to this form, all of your efforts, actions and memories scare you into the impermanence of your surroundings? I think of this and suddenly it seems like nothing is really here, and that I can't grab onto anything or there is nothing to hold tight to.
I have some many other questions but I feel like this post is already lengthy enough, it's getting late and my mind is straying into dark places as I edit this (wrote this over the spawn of my day; reason why my friend was with me earlier but not now) I question and wonder reality. And is this realm that I am perceiving now the real true one? It seems so strange to be on this earth in this form. If you think about it from outside of yourself; the earth seems very very alien like. I mean, humans? WHAT? Where in science Fiction did this being/form arise. Japanese people and anime? what strange things. Canadians and Eskimos? WHAT? British people, Indian people and TEA? The entire continent of Australia and all of it's life. The entire country of Africa (joking continent) and all it's life. Giraffes and Gorillas. Sheep, and woolen knitted socks? Where does something like this arise in time and space? Everything on earth is so strange. Why do we as humans think we are anything special or different from anything else?
What do Buddhists say about the human form?
Again this entire post. Is just a debate to calm my mind and past of my journey on/to seek enlightenment. Like I said above; what good does it do me if you just tell me that I am correct, that I am right, that there is a god, that there is an after life. So what I fell better. I do not know. Belief will only block me from knowing the truth. I need to be exposed to uncomfortable views and beliefs. Thoughts I might not like, that are challenging and make me think. That give me shift in perspective and open my eyes to the truth. So I look more for debatable answers than Yes or now answers. And I appreciate your time for reading my long post and taking the time to respond.
I look forward to tomorrow where I can read all of your responses and debate with all of you. Until then sleep tight and remember; we are alive only now.
