Thoughts on dying/death

I think the legal side of it is complicated, but what isn't? The main barrier is the fact that the church is very firm that assisted dying in any shape or form is completely unacceptable and they have more of a role than most people would realise in shaping our laws. There are several members of the church who get automatic seats in the House of Lords, prayers are said every day in the Commons and the head of the church could theoretically completely block a new law. 

If the will of the majority (who are generally in favour of assisted dying in at least the most obviously okay circumstances) was going to be enforced, it's not impossible to figure out a way to write something that would be okay to most people. The fact that a terminally ill but lucid person is forced to suffer for months or longer with no quality of life and no legal way out is a massive stain on our decency. 

What interests me is what you said about your gran. My gran had dementia and I was a carer for her for about 9 months towards the end of her life before I went to university. I now volunteer for the Alzheimer's society and have done for just over a year.

Hiding medication- especially tablets- is actually a symptom of dementia. As for her depression, it can come from valid places. She has every right to be depressed, which is why she is. Her having "valid" reasons for being depressed doesn't negate the fact that she could have depression.

I watched my gran be dragged through the end of her life when she had no quality of life for quite a few months (up to about 15 months) before her death. To put it crassly, had she been a dog we would've been negligent owners for not putting her down. Unfortunately it becomes tricky with humans as it is just intrinsic that we don't want other humans to die, and legally speaking it gets very complicated to do anything other trying to extend someone's life as much as possible.

As for death, I am a bit scared of it, but the thing that I find weirdest of all is the fact that everyone dies. I look at people and think "every one of you is going to die at some point". Sometimes I think it is cruel to bring babies into the world knowing they will suffer and die one day.

It sounds like it was a very scary time, as well as a deeply emotional time, when your grandfather died. It sounds like he was very important to you. I never really had an experience like that as a child because I didn’t even feel connected to my own body, let alone another person’s. It would have been nice (in hindsight) to have gotten a little closer to my grandparents, although I’m convinced that one of my grandads looks out for me, from somewhere! 

I agree with you about how easy it is to take things for granted. I lived most of my life that way. It wasn’t until I got into the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous that I started to learn about gratitude. Now I’m grateful for every breath I take and for all the things I don’t have. Life is so precious, I am so grateful to have one. It took me more than 50 years to realise it though. 

I couldn't stop thinking about it as a child when my grandfather died. I'm pretty sure I didn't go through any sort of grieving process at the time and, like I say, nobody knew what was going on in my head and I was unable to express myself. My mind was just focused on trying to reconcile what had happened in order to come to some sort of understanding.

At the end of the day, it's part of what has shaped me to become who I am and my views on life, the world around me and how much we should value things because it's so easy to take anything for granted.

Excellent goal. I gave those words up a while ago. It took practice, but I promise you, all the time, energy and practice you put in, will be well worth it because as you realised, they zap our power, or rather, we give it away through those words. 

Try not to think of yourself in limbo, as that will actually block anything coming to you and it prevents you from enjoying the moment now, as the mind is thinking it’s in limbo. Instead, you could just think, I’m simply going to enjoy some time in the moment, and I’ll be ready for a new interest when it comes, but in the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy my time, just being, in the moment. 

Well good for setting some goals.im sure itll be beneficial for your health. I like to try to set one for each year. Nothing too taxing.  This year its to introduce a refrain from using "should have/would have/could have" as these phrases are not productive.

Yes i agree. Let interests find you instrad of seeking them out. Im a bit in limbo at the minute.

No, I haven’t heard of futurelearn, it sounds good though, but I definitely don’t need any distractions at the minute, as I’ve just set some goals. But thanks for letting me know. I probably will check it out at some point, no I know about it though. 

I’ve set 5 goals for myself for this year. It’s something I’ve never done before. I’ll be getting some help from autism plus, as to how I go about achieving them. They’re all related to health and well being and interests. And my interest just now, is what will be my work, when I get back into that, so it feels doubly exciting. The human mind has been my one consistent special interest, throughout my life, and I’m now going over all my metaphysics training, and just getting stuck into that really. 

It sounds like you got further than me with the female autism thing, although I did research a lot, over a lot of months, come to think of it! Lol! 

I’ve found that when I try and find something to grab my interest, nothing really keeps my attention. So at those times, I’ve learned to just be, and just let something arise naturally. And it always does, at some point. And in the meantime, I enjoy doing other things such as walking. I always get inspired when I walk as well. It’s like movement gets the mind working and when I’m not looking for something, but instead just spending time in the moment. Something always comes, when it’s ready and in the meantime, I enjoy just being. Something that can be easy for me to forget about sometimes. 

I seem to go back to Abraham Lincoln a lot and the founding fathers, as well as Henry Ford. I like researching inventors, it seems and prominent people from history! Lol! 

Like you though, I just love devouring knowledge. I’m about to watch ‘what the bleep do we know’ on YouTube, again. 

Well we are himan beings not doings. Thats why i love my cat. She is in the moment all the time. As far as i know, no concept of worrying about past or future.

Hsve you heard of futurelearn? Im sure there will be something on there to pique your interest. Mine of late had been autism in females but i think ive exhausted all resources (yes i do mean the whole interne!). Feeling out of sorts at the moment as i dont have anyting to sink my teeth into.

Ive been trying to shoe-horn astrophysics back into my life after doing a lot of research and some online cpurses a few years ago but so far its just not happening.

Yeah, like I said, there's billions of things we can think about or take an interest in and I love it that we don't all have the same interests as I love and  enjoy hearing about other people's, especially those of autistic people. It fascinates me how utterly interesting most of us are. My new autistic friend is telling me more and more about his different interests, and not only do I get an enormous amount of pleasure from hearing about them, but it's like we're building a friendship through talking about them with each other. I'm beginning to understand what that means now, to build friendships. 

Me too,  I love and cherish my thinking time but I do try to make time for just being and for enjoying nature as well, although not so much of anything else for me just now, oh, and my autism group. That’s enough for me just now. 

And I'm the same, forever the student. My dad said education is the only thing I stick to so, like you, I decided to make life an education, so I'd always be doing what I love :) 

WoW, that's HUGE. I started to read your comment and was overcome with anxiety. I had to stop reading. I had to get my breath. It was  like, whoa. How does anybody live with that? I can't imagine living my life thinking I could die at any minute. That's huge. Or at least it would be for me. 

It's like, I can't imagine, living, and believing that. I'm so glad that I never bothered thinking about death and dying. It's just never occurred to me to think about it. And I'm realising that, for me, I was so lucky that it didn't, because if I thought I could die at any moment, I just don't know how I could live, peacefully. 

I live my life, at the minute anyway, while I've been in burn out, from appointment to appointment. Honestly, I missed enough major appointments to start keeping the appointments in mind, and keep checking my phone etc to make sure I've got the right date and time and that I even know what day it is (because I forget that as well, regularly) so I suppose the first thing that came to mind when I read that, was f**k me, this is it then, I'll not only be waiting for the rest of my life, but I don't even know when it's gonna happen, but that it could be any minute.

But to be honest, I've just tried it now, to think of death and dying, and nothing really comes to mind. I guess I just don't have any thoughts on it. It's not unusual. There are billions of stuff I don't have thoughts about and the way I'm living life just now, appointment to appointment, its a good job I haven't got any thoughts about that in my head. 

Life is for the living of course it is. But i like spending my time thinking about all the eventualities and researching if science can provide any answers. This is not to the detriment of enjoying nature, the weather, family etc. Life is about curiosity

I think life is about learning as much as we can. I enjoy learning. Im not trying to seek out any truth by the way. Just to explore.

My thoughts on dying and death ~ I don't have any.

How do l know it will even happen? It hasn't happened yet. And I have no need to think about it, other than the times, prompted by my sister and my friend, to think about funeral songs. I went along with it and chose some songs. 

But my answer is I don't think about it because I have no need to think about it, so if I did think about it, I would be using the time I had now, thinking about something that might happen in the future, which could never happen because the future only exists in the mind, when I could be enjoying a rain drop or a sun beam.

I don't notice those things when I'm thinking, so I reserve my thinking time for things that are useful to me. And for me personally, it has no relevance to me in my life right here and now. My interests tend more towards life although I do have a thing about dead bodies. Whenever I work in a hospital, before I do anything, I check out the morgue and make my presence and my interest in dead bodies known, and they always accommodate my need to indulge in my curious interest in dead bodies. But I don't think about death or dying. I guess I just figure that living is more relevant to me right now. 

For a starting point, I think we all need to talk about death more.

For me, talking about death comes in two parts.

Part 1: I am terrified of death. Why? Eternal nothingness. No consciousness. No senses. No thoughts. Nothing. For eternity. For me, to have consciousness and senses is priceless, which is why I know I am privileged to be alive.

Part 2: We are not meant to live forever, so I accept death as the natural process of life. I will not live forever. I accept that I could die at any moment and if it's to happen then it will happen.

My beliefs are based on the idea that eternal life is based on the idea that the atoms, which make up our body, will continue to be part of the world and the universe, the energy within our bodies will simply be transferred from one state to another because energy is neither created nor destroyed but simply transferred from one state to another. However, our brains and the biochemical reactions within our bodies cease to function so we lose our consciousness while what has made us is simply returned to the greater whole of the world and universe around us. So, in a sense, I have a spiritual belief in that we and the world and the universe are all connected.

When I was a child, my first grandfather died, and it traumatised me. I didn't understand what was going on and all I knew is that my grandfather had gone and would never be coming back because he died. I suppose I just held a strong sense of attachment to my family that what happened really had a severe impact on me as a child. Going to bed, I wondered if I would wake up again. The spectre of death, that everyone died, haunted me in a way and I accepted my own mortality, the mortality of my family and everyone around me. The people I cared about would one day die and I couldn't do anything about it. It was painful and emotionally straining as a child yet because I didn't understand and because I didn't really express emotions as a child, nobody picked up on anything. It's very painful to lose the people I care about and that's why I can also find it hard to even consider getting close to people.

Like I say though, I accept death so even as it terrifies me, I have no power or control over it so I have to live with it. I was told by a psychologist who was involved in my diagnosis that at least I have the rest of my life to prepare for it rather than waiting until the end to suddenly feel afraid. Not sure it's the greatest of comforts but I know that there's nothing wrong with being afraid. I do my best to live with it, to be thankful for being alive, and thankful for the time I can share with those that I care about even though I know I will have to lose them eventually.

So, does that mean that I believe that people should strive to stay alive at any cost? No. I accept that we are mortal entities who are born to die. We can't escape death and to pay any price for life is something I can't comprehend. My father is an example, he's already decided that he's prepared to take his own life if his quality of life falls below a certain level and I respect his decision. Life and living should be about the quality of our ability to experience it, so if people feel that their ability to experience life or that their quality of life isn't good enough to constitute living then I can accept and respect their decision. Even to me, life is not simply about being hooked up to machines to be kept alive, or to live a poor quality of life. I suppose the only differences are where I may decide to draw that line on what sort of quality of life I am prepared to live with. I haven't actually drawn a line yet, probably because it depends on the circumstances at the time, but I don't want to be forced to live simply for the sake of ticking a box to say I'm alive.

Ive also wondered before now the body and mind processes and reacts upon different modes of death. E.g instant death by bullet or slower process through illness

A few thoughts of my own...

Regarding the physical procesd of death...it happens to everyone so why worry about it. i believe our bodies compensate and flood us with feel-good chemicals near the end. So far i feel ive had a good life. I dont think i want for much. Im contented and happy. Im extremely grateful for family, friends, my job, mysic, art, nature. I feel i have no regrets as ive slways just got on with whatever situation im in. 

Im petrified of losing my parents.

I lost my grandma last year. I was with her very near the end. Dememtia along with other problems. It was awful to see her deteriorate. At the time i thought we keep ppl alive longer than they should be. Now im not sure...she fought to the very end and the nurses did a wonderful job. My friend's mum has early onset dementia. He wants every last moment with her because she is relatively young.

I dont believe in an afterlife as such. I dont know if consciousness survives. Ive been dipping in and out of quantum physics for thr past few years trying to find out.

But what happens before we are born then? At what point do we become conscious beings?

Im interested in these people (children) who know things from a past life they couldnt possibly know. There was something on Really TV about this.

I think we are quite sqeamish about death. Have you seen Dark Tourism on Netflix? Theres a country - might be in South America, where they dig members of the dead up every year and decorate them with clothed and jewellery and give gifts.

An interesting thread.  My own argument, for myself, against suicide is that we can never know if life can get any better unless we give it the chance to.

But supposing we've given it chance after chance after chance, and it's never really improved?  In fact, with each chance we've given it, it's just actually gotten worse in one way or another?  And supposing we've reached an age where a combination of factors might be edging us towards a reconsideration of our position?  Supposing, for instance, that we're starting to develop degenerative (though not immediately terminal) health issues as a natural part of the ageing process.  Supposing we are feeling acute mental distress at the current state of our lives and at the thought of continuing with it.  Supposing we feel that we're beyond all the usual 'where there's life, there's hope' platitudes, and the calls to the Samaritans, and the other myriad interventions designed to make us stay alive at all costs.  Supposing, too, that we have no friends we can go to, and no supportive family: in fact, no one at all who will truly grieve at our passing.  Supposing we've lost interest in many of the things that used to interest us.  Supposing we no longer wish to take tablets to numb our pain - whether it be physical or mental, or both. 

Supposing, then, we've come to a place where, having weighed it all up, we've decided quite consciously and rationally that we no longer wish to carry on living.

Shouldn't we be allowed to take the route of 'voluntary euthanasia' that many with terminal illnesses make?  Shouldn't we be able to fly abroad to somewhere like the Dignitas clinic, and end our lives in a dignified manner rather than through the usual horrific methods of suicide that we're all familiar with?

It's not being selfish after all, is it.  Perhaps it's actually more selfish of society to insist that we prolong the agony.

Just putting the thought out there.

I believe in reincarnation too, though by my beliefs I don’t have to worry about dying in any particular way because I believe our soul is intended to experience many different lives (in order to learn from them all), and therefore what we have/do in one life will not be the same in the next. Basically each life is different as we are here to learn different lessons from each of them.

I realise some may find my views to be completely bonkers but hey ho, it would be terribly boring if we all had the same opinions about everything!

You’re fine Endymion - I wasn’t upset by anything you said, I was just trying to clarify what I meant myself. Sometimes I find that on here people can pull the wrong interpretation from what you say, as we all process things from our own viewpoint of course, so I thought it best to clarify.

I thought you tackled the subject well, as you say abortion is a sensitive subject for many and I think debating it as an issue could go on forever (which is why I also avoided going into that).

I constantly worry about what I say, and I’m always concerned that I might upset someone with my comments, but I just try to be me and hope nobody hates me for it! I always enjoy reading your comments though and often I agree with them myself, so please don’t worry about saying the wrong thing where I’m concerned.

Sorry! I didn't mean to sound combative about it! I was going more for 'emotionally un-involved' and trying hard not to upset anyone in the process by just sticking to the facts as I understand them. Phew!! It can be a minefield sometimes trying not to say the wrong thing (Or is it just me overthinking everything again?). 

I am replying to myself, yet have read two answers so far from Nexus9 and Endymion...

I made no mention of "suicide" and have no intention of entering upon that particular topic - here (in public). It also touches upon Religion, as Reincarnation does... but I myself only mentioned Reincarnation.

I post this just to let anyone know why I might not Post again about it...

...Except to say, that when I was being Diagnosed with Aspergers, I was asked, and I said all that, yet their own way of acknowledging what I said was to completely ignore that answer!

(I also said that I was a "Cynosure", but they mis-heard this word and wrote "Sinecure" instead... Go Figure.)     :-/