When you think about your own death: relief or tragedy?

When you think about the future and your own death, do you see it as a relief or as a tragedy?

I look forward to it. But I'm not in any hurry.

I'm anxious to see what ot's like on the other side, but I can wait to find out. :-)

...relief for a bunch of other people!

I just wonder what's next? Am I a hellbound liberal? Is there life after death? Please do not let me be re-born in a red state......

you are not doing your job. ObviousLy, you are doing your job if it'LL be a reLief to them. :P

Have you pissed off a repubLican today?

I try to piss off republicans EVERYDAY:).......

I pissed off a few yesterday. Believe it or not, just playing Green Day really loud in the car at a stoplight did it...

as if my Ego just could not face the fact that this was
something I had NO control over whatsoever.... :wtf: :D

but the older I get the more I can accept it and maybe even look forward to it in some freaky sort of way...out of curiosity!

DemEx

But having worked in the neuroscience field I've seen a ton of brain damaged people, their MRIs etc etc... And I have a real hard time believing in anything beyond death... I've also come to see how slow and painful it can be... So, for me, right now, it's a slow tragedy... If you are lucky it's sudden and you may not realize it... Of course, it is impossible to rule out that some "soul" keeps going on. But then you start wondering where this soul was during the time a person was brain damaged... Stored somewhere safe?...

....I see the soul as the life force, so even in a coma victim the soul is still in the body - in all the cells....

Just my idea.

DemEx

Since the cells have the full DNA set... But all the information about your own self/memories is stored in the nervous system... At least, as far as we know. I mean, if you damage certain brain regions the personality changes... Even though your body still has plenty of cells... Very tricky...

I did some psychotherapeutic regression work in the past with reliving memories, and it seemed to me in that experience that memories are also stored in other parts of the body - reliving physical pain as actual present pain, for example. (Not just the memory of the pain, but re-feeling it)

There are books on how the body remembers too....

Nothing we know for sure though.

Personality, character, ego, etc. to me have nothing (little?) to do with the soul.

DemEx

I hope to die when I am unconcious and not necessarily expecting it. I don't want the going unconcious to my certain demise experience either. I have passed out from having blood drawn, which feels just awful to me and would be similiar to the experience of death from a sudden medical event or trauma. I have also been brought to consciousness suddenly with smelling salts and that is not too fun either.

ReLief, because I can't seem to get my act together. Tragedy, because I think if I had about 900 more years, I couLd finaLLy figure out how to fix my act...

n/t

My life is like this. I had a troubled home life growing up. I didn't exactly fit in at school. Despite this, I managed to suceed in my classwork, in sports, music, and in writing. I went to the promised land of college where I felt that I fit in for the first time in my life. I didn't excel as much comparatively but I still excelled. I met my husband there and married him shortly after I graduated.
It has been almost 5 years since I have graduated. I have not really excelled at anything. I have a job that I hate that the average person could do. I am basically estranged from my family. I have few friends and the people at work don't really like me. I can't run anymore. I don't write as well nor am able to write more than a few pages of fiction. I have developed severe anxiety which keeps me from doing the things that I need to do. I have also developed a digestive problem which makes it difficult for me to even eat. I am in debt. It seems that anxiety is contagious and I have given it to my husband. We don't own our house nor have children nor will be able to afford that anytime soon. I don't know if I even could be a good parent right now.
All I wanted was a worthwhile career, to own my own home, good friends, and a family. I did everything that I was supposed to do, but it just isn't happening. If I were to die today, I would believe that I had died a complete faliure as a person.
For people who have lived full lives and done the things that I wished to achieve and have people who will remember them as good people, their deaths are not tragic.

It's very interesting... Some of my (more senior) colleagues are famous academics. They have money, recognition and what not. Yet, listening to them, they are so fucking miserable. Why? Because their identity now relies on meeting those expecations. They are literally going crazy because they are or are getting old and at some point they'll be "washed up"... Sad... So, in the end, it is not clear that when you reach those ideals you'll be happy (though it may seem so now)... I'm not much happier than 10 years ago, even though I'm more recognized etc etc. There is always the "next level up". It's a trap, damnit...