On Death and Dying-How do you deal with it?

Couscous

Basically, this thread is for discussion of how you deal with the death of people you know and the knowledge that you are going to die one day. I generally try to ignore thoughts about how I will eventually will die. I'm still young (19) so I haven't had to deal with the death of any friends or close family members.

I'd also like to know how your religion affects your attitude towards dying. As an atheist, I can't take any comfort in the idea of an afterlife. I know Qinqu has basically replaced faith in an afterlife with practical immortality through a "singularity."

Duffel

I'm not looking forward to dying but it's a fact of nature. Maybe it won't be so bad. I often think of the world as really one inhabited by the dead instead of the living; "life" is just our brief chance at making some sort of influence that will be felt after we're gone. It's the unnatural, rather than the natural state, which is death or simply nonexistence.

Anyway, the best advice I ever had about dealing with the death of others was, "Just keep going." Live your life like you did before they died to the best of your ability, they wouldn't want you to stay in mourning. If you let it get to you it's easy to get extremely depressed, but the best thing to do is just keep living your life the same as you always did, cliche as it sounds. It'll feel empty and hollow at first, but eventually it won't hurt anymore.

KalTorak

I lost a grandfather when I was about 7, so it didn't really hit me. I'm 23 now and haven't had anyone close die (closest I can think of is a teacher at my high school who had cancer and knew he was going to die. I hadn't had a class with him for 3 or 4 years when he died, but I was old enough to feel something). Two of my grandparents are in their 90s and my remaining grandmother isn't much younger, so I've been trying to get used to the idea to prepare for when it happens.

Also an atheist. I guess all I can say about how to deal with it is don't feel bad for how you feel. If it hits you hard, it's ok to be sad for losing someone. If it doesn't affect you as much as you think it should, don't worry about it - they don't care if you're sad or not, they're dead.

Rikushix

I often consider myself lucky. My father died of leukemia when I was four, so I don't remember much of him. It makes me sad thinking about the past, but as morbid as it sounds, it just doesn't as impact me now as much as it would if it had happened when I was 9 or 10, for instance. I've asked my mom about it on several occasions and she's said that at four I hadn't quite grasped the concept of him being "gone", so it wasn't a big deal. Although this may be compounded by the fact that my parents divorced when I was two, so it wasn't as if I saw him every day.






And I totally just got chills now, because I just remembered that his funeral was on April 10th, which was his birthday, and in that year, Easter Sunday. I know this because the only memory of have of it is a very close friend of his giving me a Cadbury Creme Egg after it was over.

Matt_S

Death is on my mind every now and then. From my own personal experiences, I have this realization that I can die at any time, from tomorrow to when I'm old and wrinkly. Being mindful of that, I had written up a word document saved in My Documents that my parents would (hopefully) run across and open if they are looking through my computer in the event of my death. It just outlines my final goodbyes to friends, family and others who have had an impact on my life, along with some other details. I sure as hell don't want to die, so it's not a suicide note, but I want to have some sort of way to say goodbye in the event that I were to die at an instant, so this is my way of doing that. It's a little morbid and depressing if you think about it, but I tend to think of it as a necessity.

I am not religious - I'm an atheist. So I really don't know what sort of experience dying will be like, or to be dead. It's hard for my brain to wrap itself around the idea of not having consciousness, but I suppose it'll happen whether I can understand it or not. It would be neat to have an afterlife of some sort (minus the burning in hell part) where I get to zoom around the universe or something but I really don't expect that to happen.

I was raised in a Christian household, and went to a private evangelical Christian school, so I have been indoctrinated with the idea that not having "Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior" will guarantee an instant ticket to hell. So whenever I think about death and the afterlife, there is this small fear in the back of my mind that when I'll die, I will go to the Pearly Gates and will summarily be sent to my eternal torture. That's just an issue of how I was raised though, and not necessarily what I think will happen.

ViolentChemistry

Everyone dies, the important thing is not to waste life trying to run away from a thing that cannot be escaped.

Endomatic

I just hope I don't die in an agonizing and slow way, even though that is probably going to be the most likely way unless we develop a cure for cancer (see that other thread re: Cancer rate goes up as other things become non-issues).

My grandmother just died a few months ago, and I've been remarkably unaffected by it.

It might have something to do with the fact that by the time she actually died, she wasn't even the same person anymore.

That's what scares me. A fucking slow decline. I really don't want that to happen to me.

Couscous

That's what scares me. A fucking slow decline. I really don't want that to happen to me.

Alzheimer's freaks me out. I really don't want to have to go through that process before I finally kick the bucket.

Qingu

Couscous wrote: »

I know Qinqu has basically replaced faith in an afterlife with practical immortality through a "singularity."

This isn't quite true.

I'm hoping for the singularity. I hope Ray Kurzweil is right. But Ray Kurzweil also seems like a bit of a crackpot.

I think "hoping something happens" is different than "having faith." I mean, I guess I'd also hope for a magical afterlife as well, except I think there's zero chance of that happening and at least some chance of the singularity happening. Also, there's stuff we can do on Earth to make the singularity more likely to happen.

Omeks

I've never had anyone particularly close to me die while I had, you know, knowledge of the world around me. The closest person was my grandfather, who died when I was three or four ears old. The only recollection I have of the funeral, which has been relayed to me by my grandma, is that when I was brought up to the casket to see him, I turned away.

Everyone else in my immediate family is still alive and well. Even my dog, who I've had since I was 11, is still doing well, though she is on various medications.

To be honest, I'm not sure how I'd react if someone close to me, even my dog, died. I remember my hamster died when I was nine or ten. I cried a lot about it and I think I even drew a tombstone to put where we buried his shoebox. I'm not sure if that's messed up or not.

Corbius

My father died when I was 14. I've always felt that I was oddly...unaffected by it. In that I didn't spiral into any major depression or anything.

I remember people around me, counselors at school, constantly wanting me to talk about it, and just being annoyed that they pulled me out of class when I felt fine.

Since I don't believe in any magical afterlife, I try to keep my dad "alive" through memories and such. It's odd how small things stay in your mind, like the way someone laughs.


As for my own death, it will happen someday. Once it happens, I won't really care, cause I'll be dead.

Elki

I need more OP pls, thanks.

Tycho wrote:

We did not actually surf a hairy wave of hobo spiders. For reasons unknown to us, though presumably they have something to do with promoting Pocket Kingdoms (which I will now link), we were sent a couple N-Gage game "decks" as part of some strange self-flagellation ritual they have going at Nokia.

I opened my own box with the trepidation on display in today's comic, if not the final result. When I think about what I would send a person who tried to derail my product launch, the product they brutally sodomized over several months is not high on that list. It isn't even low on the list. I would erect safeguards to keep anyone in my organization from inadvertently sending one and subjecting my shit to further ridicule. But there it was, nestled there in hay like the Baby Jesus. I don't know why the hay was in there, maybe it's deadly poison hay.

You might not be aware that some time after the launch of the universally maligned original system they put out another version of the N-Gage that was somewhat more difficult to hate, dubbed the N-Gage QD. What they did was resolve the biggest problems people had with the machine, namely the sidetalkin' and the ability to change the game in the system without removing the Goddamn battery. It's the same hardware otherwise, which has thus far meant that it's got just enough juice to make developers overreach and indulge their 3D fantasies without any real consummation.

I didn't play very much Pocket Kingdoms, as you can see on the competitors page they set up for the pre-release event. They shouldn't have sent me that thing with Prime 2 and the sequel to Half-Life so close, and I feel no shame for initiating triage. The only nice thing that can be said for my rank is that I'm higher than Scott Kurtz, who is ever my cunning foe - this brings me joy. That said, I played it enough to know that now the N-Gage was a real platform, because it had finally acquired its excellent game, perfectly matched to the system that will slip right under the radar of most gamers. The sleeper hit. It's a rite of passage.

In a nutshell, you build armies to scour the land and destroy opponents online. Armies consist of four slots, which you can fill with units of varying kinds. Some creatures take up multiple slots, and equipment - both purchased and player created - helps to further distinguish a given group. The game does not take itself seriously, which I wasn't expecting - the common tongue in this universe is a combination of leetspeak and lines from rap songs, which makes sense once you understand that it is essentially a parody of gaming communities. The game itself is by Sega as I understand it, and it's also available on Japanese phones. Minus the Eminem, I'm assuming. To put it clearly, the game was a real surprise. I'd imagine the simultaneous sigh of relief by N-Gage owners could move a galleon.

Gabe actually uses the N-Gage QD as his personal phone now, and the irony nearly peels off my skin. The reality is that they have made an excellent phone that is kind of a half-ass gaming rig - at least, and this is what I'm realizing, for the kinds of games they keep pushing. Pocket Kingdoms is a quirky multiplayer strategy game that doesn't really make sense on any other platform. Look at Pathway To Glory, another strategy experience that plays to the actual metal of the system. Are they finally figuring something out? That they have created a platform with strengths and weaknesses, and that development can accentuate one of those and downplay the other? I'll be God damned.

(CW)TB out.

you ran out of lies