I also think about that stuff. I got into a car accident a few years back, which made me realize just how quickly and how simply my life could end. After the accident I began to hate being in cars, especially on the highways (high speeds.) It has grown into a real problem --I absolutely hate travelling now.
Anyway so that also started me thinking about more than just how quickly I could die, but also, how fragile health really is. I could end up with cancer, or with a life-long disability that makes every day restricted and painful…
And then I think about how the majority of our time on earth is spent doing useless things or things we’d rather not be doing. (Like flipping burgers for minimum wage.) What a waste.
It’s all actually depressing!
Montezuma – as should be clear from the other posts in this thread, most people experience a period of acute mortality awareness at some point in their lives. A lot of people go through such a phase around ages 7-10 – there are even a bunch of literary references to this particular crisis.
I went through a really strong mortality crisis at age 9. I can still vividly remember what it felt like to lie in bed at night knowing that I was going to die. I’ve always expected that I would experience a similar crisis later in my life, but so far it hasn’t happened.
As long as you are not experiencing symptoms of depression, I wouldn’t worry about it. Knowing that you’re going to die someday is a part of life. The acute awareness will pass.
I don’t use sigs, but the one that I would use if I did is apropos: “The tragedy of the human condition is that we’re aware of our own mortality; the comedy of the human condition is that we’re aware of our own nakedness.”
It happened when I was a teenager as well, then paused, and this sorta helped me reconcile with my fathers side of the family,
notably my nana. But I still don’t speak to my father.