I’m not quite clear on exactly what you mean with this, but I am quite clear that I disagree with it. Though it may be true in some instances.
I’m with Zette - I don’t worry much about my own death since, well, I’ll be dead. But I do worry a lot about Mr. Athena dying. He’s 13 years older than me - chances are, I will be spending at least some of my older years without him. I have a hard time reconciling that.
Also, his father dropped dead of a heart attack at age 63. Granted, Mr. Athena is in better shape than his dad was, but sometimes these things are just genetic. If Mr. Athena goes the way of his Dad, I’ll be 50. Both my grandmothers are still alive in their 80’s. That gives me a good 30 years alone.
God, this thread is depressing…
Don’t make me hop a freight for NYC so I can kick your ass, young lady!
I’m supposed to be working so I can’t go into the depth of pep talk that I’d like, but that’s LOSER TALK! Plenty of people your age AND OLDER find new careers that turn out to be more satisfying than the ones they left. Don’t wait for the publishing biz to force your hand by firing you–and you know it’s inevitable in that business. Take stock of your skills and education and strong points that don’t really qualify as skills and see what you can do. I know it can be done because I have been forced to reinvent myself because I’ve been obsoleted. What I started out doing had more feet in the nineteenth century than the twenty first.
And I mean it when I say you should try writing something other than biographies. You demonstrate you can do it all the time. By spending so much time with people who were more successful than you and are dead and, especially, the ones who are dead and FORGOTTEN you are bound to have more than your share of existential crises. Skewering the living with clever bon mots is EVER so much fun!
And a “living wage” in NYC is a “princely sum” in many other, very satisfying, places.
Well, at least I am not entirely alone.
But I should clarify that I am not depressed, not even close. I have issues, for sure, but overall I am very, very happy. I squeeze the juice out of my life, or try, every day. But my happiness has this dark cloud hanging over it, and it would be nice to have some completely sunny days sometimes. Just sometimes is all I ask. Be able to plan ahead without worrying that there really won’t be any “ahead”.
I’ve actually made a lot of progress. Back in the days when most aspects of my life sucked (I was desperately poor, in huge debt, smoking, no true love) I was actually afraid of getting happy. Because ya know… if I ever got happy, that would be the time that I’d die. There was comfort in my unhappiness because I was emotionally convinced that it kept death at bay.
There is a tiny element of that still in regards to my weight. That the big cosmic joke of my life is that I’ll finally get slim and fit, and before I can really enjoy it, I’ll die.
Those of you who mentioned your dogs: oy vay! I do that, too! Always have done, but especially now. I had to say goodbye to my two cockers within 4 months of each other, and in between I got Maggie. I love her so much, so desperately much, that I just don’t know how I will be able to stand her death. I thought losing Sophie was bad, but losing Maggie will be devastating. And of course, I can’t help thinking about it. Which again, serves a GOOD purpose in that it makes me make sure to appreciate her now, play with her now, walk her now, spend time with her now. No regrets, eh?
Which brings me at last to IzzyR… Izzy, you didn’t clarify why you disagreed with the idea that fear of death is fear of not having lived. What do you think fear of death is? It’s hard to imagine that a great many people in the year 2001 fear hell…do they? And if there is no hell, what else would there be to fear about death itself?
Not the process of dying, mind you…because that could certainly blow. And that is really my fear, that I will KNOW that my death is coming. I just don’t want to know. I think.
Ack.
stoid
In the immortal words of Mojo Nixon:
CANCEL, ERASE.
(Pay no mind, it’s just me throwing a little salt over my shoulder.)
stoid
The words I’ve always loved were Woody Allen’s (another death-obsessed person): “I don’t want to acheive immortality through my work, I want to acheive immortality through not dying.”
stoid
Stoid,
May I suggest Zen? This is just the stuff they get on about.
Meditation works wonders for grounding your awareness in the present moment, and exposing the true nature of your worries about time (of course that will probably take a lot of practice)
Stoid, seriously, if it bothers you that much, please see a therapist. I’m not being flippant. It’s not healthy to spend all your time focusing on “what if?”
“What if?” There are so many possibilities. I hate stuff like this-we can’t sit around and worry-what if. We don’t know. YOu just have to take it a day at a time.
Personally, I do fear hell. But even leaving that aside, many people are afraid of the great unknown. And even atheists who are sure that death simply means non-existence might prefer existence to non-existence.
So I think fear of death basically means that you’ve been around for a while and have come to appreciate life to some extent, and are frightened at the thought of leaving it.
Also, fear of death may have an inborn emotional, non-rational component as well. Animals fear danger, though they may not understand the actual consequences that they are fearing.
I’m still a bit unsure about what you meant by “fear of not having lived”. But if you mean that people are afraid that their life will cease without having reached an acceptable level of fulfilment, I agree that it may be true in some instances. But most people who are not so introspective also fear death.
(I once saw a comic strip parody of Woody Allen in which Allen says something like “Life is an unlit tunnel with no end.” The person he is addressing says “I know it! I know it!” and procedes to blow his head off with a shotgun. In the next panel, Allen - with no change of expression - calmly continues “death too is an unlit tunnel with no end”. Pretty bleak.)
Yep. bein’ there, doin’ that. Or trying. Staying present is what it’s all about anyway. There is only now.
Which I understand intellectually…
stoid
Stoid, just 'cuz one doesn’t feel depressed doesn’t mean that one’s outlook would not be changed for the better by use of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Continually thinking about the end of life could be a manifestation of an anxiety or obsessive disorder. These disorders respond to SSRI’s. SSRI’s do more than just treat depression.
Besides which, the disease of depression itself is often undiagnosable to the person with it, and a high percentage of people with the disease of depression do not feel “depressed”.
A good pshrink could help one navigate thru these issues and offer therapeutic options.
I appreciate the time and trouble you’ve taken to offer the advice, but really, it wouldn’t be worth it to me. One of the things that I’m loving so much about life at the moment is that I’m finally drug-free: no caffeine, no nicotine, no nothing. I do take a couple of drugs periodically for particular problems, but I dislike having to do so. If I were feeling unhappy, non-functional, I’d think about it, but that’s not the case. It’s just how my head works, and as I say, I’m in therapy to try and clear it out.
I make progress, as noted above. Another step on the road to changing my attitude about death just happened recently…my fear of dying has always been so strong that I’ve wanted to live forever…or at least a couple hundred years. But now I’ve decided that this option is only appealing if some of my loved ones can, too. I have finally internalized the fact that I do not want to be the last man standing, so to speak. Being utterly alone, without any of the people I love, not one, at the end would be dreadful. So while I’m perfectly willing to outlive most of the people I love, I’m not interested in outliving all of them.
Of course, I could always take on new people to love…but the ones I love already were hard enough wheat to separate from the chaff, I don’t anticipate finding a whole lot more.
Life…death… it’s all so damn BIG.
Hey, as long as we’re on the subject, I have to say there is one thing I would really love to get out of dying: comprehending infinity and how the universe came to be. If I could know that this would be the payoff in leaving, it might be worth leaving for. Because these things confound my tiny mammalian brain…
stoid
PS: Q, another reason I’m uninterested in drugs: I used Wellbutrin for a short while to help me quit when I was a smoker, and two things happened: I felt horrible physically and emotionally, and I developed an allergy. I broke out in hives all over my body, which sent me to the emergency room and ultimatly played out in horrible domino effect of pain, drugs, more pain caused by those drugs, more emergency room visits, blah blah… no thanks! 
ANTIDEPRESSANTS ARE NOT THE SAME THING!!!
Look. You have what sounds like a PHYSICAL problem–too rapid uptake of serotonin which causes poor transfer of signals between cells. Would you not treat a broken leg? Would you refuse to take penicillin for an infection because you are “drug free?”
Modern antidepressants are not “happy pills,” despite what the comedians would have us believe. They do not operate by helping you deny reality, like recreational drugs. Instead, they help you to see reality accurately. No rose colored glasses, but less of your current murkiness, too. They don’t MAKE you feeel good. They ALLOW you to feel good. There is an enormous difference.
Gosh, drop, calm down! I appreciate the desire to help, really I do.
But what you describe is not what I’m experiencing. Believe me, I have no trouble seeing reality clearly. That’s kind of the issue, ya know? My desire is to be able to do what most other people are able to do: deny the reality that death is coming. 
I know how SSRI’s work, and I don’t think they would be worth it and I don’t think they would change anything. This way of thinking has been the way I have thought ever since I can remember. Since at least 9-10 years old. I have these thoughts in the midst of exquisite joy, I have them in the depths of despair, I have them washing the dishes. They do not have an obvious impact on my mood, they do not destroy the joy. They just * never go away. * I don’t think I have brain chemical problems, I really don’t. I think it’s an issue of the way I think, who I am, my psyche. And changing that, I know from years of experience at successfully doing so in many other areas, takes time and “work”, for want of a better term.
And as for my drug-free thing…they are “the same” in terms of why I want to be drug-free. I want to be completely myself, have all my physical and mental experiences be natural, normal, entirely unadulterated. I’ve been medicating myself most of my life, and now that I’m done I’d like to keep it that way. (With the exception of the occasional joint, of course. :D) Having known people who have used virtually every kind of SSRI out there (Zoloft, Paxil, and of course, Prozac) I know that I don’t want to have my life messed with by a drug. It’s too high a price to pay.
Hey, as much as I really hate this death thing in my head, it’s not ruining my life. It sucks, but I’m experiencing lots of joy. I think of it as a kind of physical pain. Some people have chronic back pain. It doesn’t detroy their whole lives. They really want it to go away, but they don’t let it run them. It’s just a shitty thing they have to learn to cope with. So it is with my “I’m gonna die” obsession.
(But I am working on changing it.)
stoid
Stoid I understand where you are coming from, and will not push the issue, just wanted to get an option out on the table. and to reiterate that dropzone is right, these meds are not primarily mood altering, do not threaten an individual’s sbstinence from mood-altering drugs, and generally have no street value.
I respect your right to make an informed decision, and leave it at that. But remember, if things deteriorate, it could help.
QTM
Then I guess you’re just morbid. There’s no rule that says you can’t be. Shit, I’m pretty morbid, too. But IF it starts to rule your life please don’t discount the possibility of getting it treated. They can fix stuff like that now. And just because your pals had problems with antidepressants it doesn’t mean you will. In the euphoria of at last having a group of drugs that actually work some doctors may have overprescribed them. And try to select GOOD side effects next time, 'kay? “Abnormal or delayed ejaculation” was my choice.
I’ve already outlived a few dogs. Cats, too. I can tell you I’ll die in about 60 years or so, if I’m lucky.
I’m not worried about it. Death will have to catch up first.
I am with you Stoid. Life can be pretty agonizing that way. Time seems to fly by faster as overall age increases, and only seems to draw the inevitable closer. I can never seem to find the time in the day to do the things I want, and I am not getting any younger.
It is depressing to see animals die, and they die so young, but one learns to try to give the animals the best life they can enjoy while they are here. Really they don’t have it so bad. They don’t have to work, or do family functions, or any of those things that take massive amounts of time and detract from fullfillment. They nap, eat, and play. In a sense, I would say they live a longer life. If you take out the time we work and such, and just count the times we have for relaxation and play I would bet that It is a shorter amount of time than 14 years. (take away school too from your childhood) So look at it that way.
I think the obsession with death adds to our humanity, and lets us live life fuller. If death is just around the proverbial corner, why not enjoy it while we can?
I don’t think your obsession is unhealthy, you just need to alter your viewpoint slightly. Instead of thinking of death as creeping up on you, like some mortal enemy, imagine it as a special reward. Like in Romeo and Juliet, their deaths were untimely, and tragic, but they loved, and so lived. If they had lived life would have been hard and cruel to them. With dissent from both families, they would be outcasts, living in some trailer park, off of welfare, barely making it by. Romeo would come home, and Juliet would bitch and moan about the lawn not being mowed, or the trash not being taken out, and Romeo would slump into alcoholism. Perhaps they would get divorced, Romeo paying child support, Juliet getting a job at some truck stop, making a few extra bucks on the side giving special favors to truckers. Who can tell.
Death only highlights life. How droll would it be to live 1000 years doing the same ol boring things like work, living only on the weekends, never accomplishing anything but having a few orgasms once a month (assuming your married), eating a few cookies, petting your 395th dog, and telling stories to your Great, great, great, great, great grandchildren about how bessie at work slept with every guy on the ladder above her, and now she is your boss.
Enjoy life as it is, that is they way of humanity. Ignore what others say, how it appears in the great picture. Let me tell you this; Life is what you make it, and only pertains to you. If you enjoy it, it does not matter if you are great, or famous or anything. If other people think it is boring, and pointless, and tell you so, tell them to fuck off.
Feeling the biological clock ticking away may be driving you nuts, but listen to it. Meditate upon it. Let it be your driving force, and do what you have been doing: cherishing life because of it. If you allow it to be torture, it may cause you to turn into a cranky old person someday, and that is a fate worse than the death you so ponder. Come to terms with death. I don’t know about your religious views, if they exist, but even a poor ol athiest like myself sees peace in death. The great unknowing blackness that destroys what I hate the most: Myself.
I don’t know how old you are, but I don’t think that age really matters. Whether you have 10 years left, or 60, I don’t see how it really matters. Death can find a 20 year old just as well as those of the geriatric nature. But why worry about something that doesn’t matter. Some day you may get Audited, but do you worry about it?
Take some Tai Chi or Yoga, something that will allow you to calm yourself and enhance the inner you, that will allow time to slow down. Time moves at the same speed as the rest of us. (well…we’ll not get into physics here) It is just the perspective that seems to change it. Try meditating for an hour a day or so, and once you get good at it, It will seem that time slows down, even for that hour.
I know how you feel though. I, like Scylla, want to live forever, but death still haunts me, and causes me some anguish, I just try to think of it the way above to get rid of those troubling thoughts.
I mostly miss my teenage days when I had the feeling of immortality. When I would fly down ski slopes, drive 1000 miles per hour, climp to the top of tall trees, trust strangers enough to hitch-hike anywhere, rock dive into the river, party like there was no tomorrow.
I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere a long the way something clicked inside and I realized that I am going to die. That there were things that could make it happen sooner.
Although true, it is a sad realization.