Immortality

[neonlyte]

I've been here for some time under another name. For reasons I do not care to explain, I will be posting in future under this name.

Immortality
How do we come to terms with our mortality? When did you become aware of your mortality? I don't mean necessarily the awareness of death that accompanies the loss of someone close. But the very personal awareness of your own mortality. How did that feel? How did you react?

I would imagine, and this is a guess, mortality means different things to each gender. Is female mortality offset in anyway due to their ability to give birth?

Do all men suffer the same shock I suffered? I will go into details later if this thread takes off.

Is the awareness of mortality purely a function of the passing years, or did some of you recognise this in your teens or twenties.

For me the awareness was sudden and instant. It crushed me for a period, I am past fifty, had never bothered with age. Then, one morning, in the street, the whole perspective of mortality hit me, froze me to the spot. Eventually I moved, tried to do what I had set out to do, failed, came home and cried.

I cried for what I had not done, for wasting time, letting it slip.

I'm more or less over it now. Part of the cleansing will be to write and that is why I seek your views.

NL

 

[SnoopDog]

I'm 22 and I won't get into detail but I'm pretty aware of my mortality. Of course the thought of 'what comes afterwards' is pretty fascinating. It's not so shocking for me, it's just irritating that you can reach a limit with your thoughts. Because you can't think further than this 'border'.
I'm not afraid of death though, I'm more afraid of dying. (you know, long suffering or so)
So the realisation of my mortality was not a shock, but surely it makes one have deep long thoughts about your own life.

Snoopy

 

[Liar]

Only slightly older than Snoopy, and have somewhat mixed feelings about the issue. The subject of death, my own forecoming, does not really concern me. In my teens I had so many close encounters with it that it became a standing joke among my firends. "So, what did you do this weekend, die again?" So death has me jaded.

Life though, and the fact that I feel time slipping through my fingers while I'm procrastinating, gets me frustrated every day. I tell myself that life is too short not to do the most of it, every second. And then I find myself doing absolutely nothing of redeeming value for weeks. Wasting prescious time gets me really angry with my slow-ass self.

#L

 

[ABSTRUSE]

My mortality slaps me hard across the face every morning and forces me to get up.
I tell people I'm half way to death and have nothing to show for it and then they try to be complacent. I'm too old for that shit.
~A~

 

[rgraham666]

Who wants to live forever,
When love must die?
Queen

And…

How can one know if one is immortal unless one reaches the end of time?
Dr. Ticos Cay - The Demon Breed

I've been aware of my mortality since I was nine years old. I've learned to live with it.

Death is the only statistical certainty after all.

 

[pop_54]

Life's too short to worry about mortality, just get on and enjoy while you're here. You aint coming back later, so what you miss now, you miss... period.

I'm too close to the end game to think about it over much, as the famous quote goes, 'I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens'. I hope to wake up dead one morning, that would suit me.

 

[SeaCat]

Only slightly older than Snoopy, and have somewhat mixed feelings about the issue. The subject of death, my own forecoming, does not really concern me. In my teens I had so many close encounters with it that it became a standing joke among my firends. "So, what did you do this weekend, die again?" So death has me jaded.

Life though, and the fact that I feel time slipping through my fingers while I'm procrastinating, gets me frustrated every day. I tell myself that life is too short not to do the most of it, every second. And then I find myself doing absolutely nothing of redeeming value for weeks. Wasting prescious time gets me really angry with my slow-ass self.

#L

Not much older here, a whole 39. My mortality snuck up and tagged me for the first time when I was sixteen. I came out of that one with some scars and the attitude that I shouldn't waste my life. I worked hard, and harder still, got ahead with a great job working for Uncle Sam. Got married to a wonderfull woman my own age. (Six foot tall with flaming red hair.) We were married for a total of six months when I lost her to an ass with an agenda. Came out of that with no emotions and a few mental scars. Stayed with Uncle for several more years then met my current wife. Thirteen years ago The Old Man with the Scyth showed up again and I spent almost six months in the hospital. It was then that I realised that life isn't all about getting ahead and doing things. It's about enjoying. Since then I've tried everything I can just to experience i, and have had a hell of a lot more fun than I had before. I may not have a lot in the bank, but I have a great wife and a world of fun experiences to look at.

SeaCat

 

[Green_Gem]

"Is the awareness of mortality purely a function of the passing years, or did some of you recognise this in your teens or twenties."


My awareness of death and mortality came at an early age, 14, to be exact when my father died suddenly. I lost my mother just over two years ago, a few months before I turned 30. I went through a bad patch then, not just with the mourning but also thinking about mortality and the things we do, or don't do with our lives since we always believe there wll be a tommorrow, or putting things off until another time. There and then, I made a decision to change the way I lived my life. The realization made me get off my ass and do some things that I really needed to do but had been procrastinating about. Some involved taking risks, others involved making decisions, mending relationships.

If we are to believe the bible and the theory about lifespan being three score and ten then I am heading towards middle age which effectively still gives me 'time' , but I know there are no guarantees and I've had too many questions about the bible to give any credence to that .

With the world being the way it is at present, there are few 'safe' places, and despite living in a place considered one of the crime capitals of the world, I try not to be paranoid, but rather to live each day as fully as I can, and not put too much off till tomorrow.

Green_Gem

 

[oggbashan]

I had been under fire from German V weapons when I was too young to care. Things went bang, streets vanished - so what? It was part of life and I accepted it without question. That was how my world was.

My sense of my own mortality started when my sister died aged 12 from polio. I was seven. Within a few short weeks my big sister changed from someone I could always run to for advice, help or even just a friendly hug to an abandoned shell lying in a coffin. Even when we fought, as siblings will, we knew we loved each other. Then she was gone.

I was aware of being under fire for the first time when I was 10. I was in 'No Man's Land' between two opposing forces for 3 days. They were and are the longest three days in my life. You cannot feel immortality when the next shell might fall short. It wasn't even 'our' war.

Having a child die before you do hurts. It hurts far more than a parent dying at an advanced age.

We are born and from that moment we start to die. Death is the only certainty.

Og - determined to write the 'perfect' story before he dies. I won't. We authors never do. The 'perfect' story is always the next one.

 

[neonlyte]

My thanks to the contributors so far.

Some observations: the majority speak of 'close shaves' with death or family/relatives dying bringing an awareness of their own mortality.

Most of the contributors so far I believe are male, is this significant?

I lost five close relatives over a two year period in my mid twenties, only twenty five years later did I become aware of my own mortality. Has anyone else had this 'sudden dawning' unconnected with someone close to them?

NL

 

[NoJo]

I'm pleased I'm mortal. The ravenous hunger I felt in my youth for experience diminishes as I get older. The hunger could never be satiated anyway, however long I were to live.

Remember God's gift to us of language. That's what he gave us when we asked him for immortality.


Here's a link to something my father said a few weeks before he died of lung cancer (it's an audio file of him talking): Breathing

 

[damppanties]

I was aware of mortality for the first time when my grandfather passed away. I was 10-11. It happened while I was there and we were watching a movie. Someone came and shut off the TV and when we objected, we were hushed and said that he was in the bathroom and wasn't replying to knocks. We went out and someone broke the door of the bathroom and we found him collapsed against the tiles. My mom is a doctor and she started pumping his heart while everyone stood around him in a huddle. We were aware that something serious was happening. I was dispatched to call another doctor who lived in the next lane and I remember running barefoot on the gravel road all the way to her house to summon her. Somehow the image, those choked up feelings as I ran, the whole episode remains fresh in my mind. That was one incident which makes me think of mortality.

Another was barely a year ago. I watched a 11 year old die right in front of me. I was there all through her illness and sat with her and talked to her and listened to her all through it. I was there when she died. I was there through the last rites. I held her mother in my arms as she sobbed her heart out. That was another incident which is one of the things which make me what I am.

My mortality? I don't think about it. Never had a close brush with death - with my life.

 

[neonlyte]

Sub Joe

Thank you for the audio.

Moving, full of courage, dignity and the celebration of life, love, and family.

When my Father in Law was dying of cancer, we moved him into the apartment with us, he was short, stocky, heavily built. I would wash him in the shower, never once did he lose his dignity or poise, stood erect as if posing for a 1920's photograph, chin jutting out staring at the tiled wall.

God knows what thoughts passed through him, we did not share a common language and the regret at not knowing him longer has remained with me.

After each shower he would look at me eye to eye, for those seconds we shared more than words can say.

NL

 

[Green_Gem]

Neonlyte, this has been a most thought provoking thread and reading the responses has somehow resonated deeply within me.

I've thought a lot more about your question since reading the responses and I'd like to thank all who have shared here and for their insights. You mentioned the greater number of contributions coming from men and it has been fascinating to read some of the male perspectives. As a female, although not having experienced it yet, I have often wondered about the whole birth process and the possibility of some kind of 'immortality' in it.

You hinted that if the thread took off you might share your story...

Green_Gem

 

[neonlyte]

Green Gem

The responses certain generate further questions.

The female birth/immortality relationship opens a vast area, one that I would like to understand, I am a Father and know the relationship between Mother and Child is generally different from the relationship between Father and Child, not at the obvious nuturing/child bearing level.

As for my story, it takes a little telling, I will work on something tonight and maybe post tomorrow.

Many thanks,

NL

 

[neonlyte]

DP

Your's is a interesting statement, drawing parallels with my own experience of close family death. Like you, I experienced close family death but never had to questioned my own mortality until much much later.

I will post later to explain how that came about.

Thank you for your contribution.

rg666

Brief but I suspect closer to my own condition than words convey. Thank you.

Ogg
Just a question, if you could write the 'perfect story', would that guarantee (for you) your immortality?

Pop
Wouldn't expect anything less from you

SeaCat
You seem to have been too close for comfort on too many occassions, enjoying what you have seems a wise course. Can I ask you, when you were striving to 'get ahead and do things' was that because you want to leave your mark?

ABSTRUSE
Just keep slapping back!

Sub Joe
You seem to know the answer to
your mortality. I would still welcome your further enlightenment, as and when.

Liar and Snoopdog, I need to consider more what you have both said.

Many thanks to all. I would welcome more.

NL

 

[Sshafer]

death

I was raised on a farm and I still live there. So I learned of death at an early age. I come from a hunting back ground so I see death as part of life you cann't have one with out the other. But still I like most people went through stages to come to the conclueion that I have today. Through the first part of your life from the time you enter your early teen till about twenty five you belive your bullet proof nothing can hurt you. Oh sure you've had some class mates die but that will never happen to you. Your much to clever to do something dumb that could get you killed. Then from about twenty five to thiry five you know your not bullet proof. But not to worry you may get hurt bad but you won't die, never it just won't happen to you. It always happens to the other guy not you. Then one day when your thirty six you wake up and relize that you are mortel just like every body ealse. You know what I mean the guy down the street thats a year younger than you drops dead mowing his lawn for no reseson. One minute he's as strong as an ox the next minute he's taking a dirt nap. From thiry six till about fifty you worry not much but still just enough about death. You know better hit the gym to get in shape because you don't want to end up like the guy down the street six feet under. When you hit fifty like I am you take stack of your life and it is then that you've got more time behind you than you've got in frount you. Now you know that death has been there at your side through life and could have taken you any time it wanted. You will find it funny that it dosen't scare you he's like an old freind. Their will be a time when you are hurting to bad and to sick to go on then you will see death and welcome him as an old and dear freind you will take for awhile then you will go with him. So death is not to be feared just look at it as part of life. Rember it not how long you live it's how you've lived it what you've left behind what will freinds rember most about you years down the road after your gone. It's how you've lived your life. Maybe a kind word to some one at there darkest moment changed their life in ways you will never know. Maybe something you told a kid that was on the edge of going down the wrong path turned his life around and set him straight. I feel it not how long you live but how you live. But thats just me I know some will read this and think I'm a nut. But I've never lived my life by what people thought of me. Thats my thought on life but what I think dosen't matter because in the end were not going to get out of life alive anyway.

 

[NoJo]

Great post there. Sshafer. You've obviously lived. Wish there were more nuts around.

 

[oggbashan]

Ogg
Just a question, if you could write the 'perfect story', would that guarantee (for you) your immortality?

No. Because the perfect story is an impossible dream. Nothing guarantees immortality.

Og

 

[neonlyte]

Welcome contribution Sshafer, seems very clear and reasoned to me. Thanks.

Ogg, I knew you would take that line, but then I know from your postings across many subjects that life for you is all embracing, you have left your mark on many things.

NL

 

[raphy]

Yeah. More brushes with death here. Came close to it at 14 in a school boating accident on the river. Saw the Grim Reaper again a few years later, although not face to face, this time in dealings with one of South Wales' largest drug dealers. Somebody dragged him into the woods, cut his hands and feet off, then burned him alive. I knew him moderately well; we'd been enemies for about 18 months before it happened.

I live every single day as if there is no tomorrow. Do I smoke? Yes. Do I eat fatty, unhealthy foods? Yes. Do I worry about a retirement fund for when I'm 65 years old? No.

I live and I savor every single moment. I don't remember the last time I was bored. There is *always* something to experience, unless you're in a sensory deprivation tank.

I can sit on the side of the road and watch cars go by, wondering about the people in them and where their lives are taking them.

I can sit with my wife's elderly aunt and listen to her tell the same stories over and over again, because each time she tells them it means that she's still here to tell them.

I can sit at home and look out of the window and watch the way the wind moves the trees - Branches never move the same way twice.

Boredom is for people who are too worried about doing things. I just want to experience them, and there's no shortage of things out there to experience. Aware of my own mortality - Most definitely.

This from Neil Peart, one of Rock's finest lyricists:

I turn my back to the wind to catch my breath
Before I start off again.
Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin, I'd like to pause
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim who learns to transcend
Learns to live as if each step was the end

 

[Guest]

I've been here for some time under another name. For reasons I do not care to explain, I will be posting in future under this name.

Immortality
How do we come to terms with our mortality? When did you become aware of your mortality? I don't mean necessarily the awareness of death that accompanies the loss of someone close. But the very personal awareness of your own mortality. How did that feel? How did you react?

I would imagine, and this is a guess, mortality means different things to each gender. Is female mortality offset in anyway due to their ability to give birth?

Do all men suffer the same shock I suffered? I will go into details later if this thread takes off.

Is the awareness of mortality purely a function of the passing years, or did some of you recognise this in your teens or twenties.

For me the awareness was sudden and instant. It crushed me for a period, I am past fifty, had never bothered with age. Then, one morning, in the street, the whole perspective of mortality hit me, froze me to the spot. Eventually I moved, tried to do what I had set out to do, failed, came home and cried.

I cried for what I had not done, for wasting time, letting it slip.

I'm more or less over it now. Part of the cleansing will be to write and that is why I seek your views.

NL

And, what you have written so far is fabulous. Sorry, couldn't help but comment on it. I hope you share it with everyone else soon.

To be perfectly honest, I've never much thought about my own mortality. Not directly, anyway. I'm too busy trying to enjoy life and get the most from it, that I don't even want to think about my own death. I guess I did think about it at the beginning of the year, as that was one of the huge motivating factors to make me give up smoking. Even then, I didn't think of it in terms of preventing a premature death, more in terms of giving myself a better quality of life.

However, last year an incredibly horrific event did make me realise quite how fragile life is, and how quickly and unexpectedly it can be snuffed away.

I live in quite a close knit community and almost exactly a year ago my community lost three children in a house fire. They were a little girl of 8, a boy of 6 and a baby girl of 1. It shook us all to the core. Their Mum managed to save just one of her children, a little boy who was 3 at the time. She tried to go back in and get the others out, as did a couple of other people, but the fire was so intense and the smoke so thick, that they just couldn't get through. I will never forget the firemen carrying their beautiful little bodies from the house. It was the most traumatic thing I have ever seen, and will ever see. The little boy who died was in my eldest daughter's class at school and she insisted that she wanted to go to the funeral, so I took her with me. I have never cried so hard and held one of my children so tight as I did that day by the graveside. Their Mum, as you can imagine, was a wreck for a long time. We all helped her as best we could, and she is beginning to get better. It made everyone realise we should cherish what we've got and how fragile life is.

I speak with the Mum regularly, and she enjoys spending time with my eldest daughter, because she talks about her son with such affection and in only the way kids do. They don't hold back, they just say things as they are and don't worry that it might be upsetting. Their Mum wants to talk about her children, but I think that adults are so guarded and mindful (fearful even) of death, that they don't talk openly about it. Kids see things differently, even when one of their own friends has died. My daughter talks to her friend's Mum about him and tells her about the games they used to play and tells her that he's up in the playground in the sky now. It chokes me up every time, but they both seem to benefit from it.

Children are wonderful people and can be so profound through their innocence.

Lou

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Lou's story reminded me of one of my own
A dear friend of mine was killed in a stupid car accident 10 yrs ago. I was pregnant with my first child then, no one new because it was a few days from Halloween and we were having a big party at which time we were going to make the announcement.

My husband, who has to have some kind of noise around to sleep, left our police scanner on all night, I heard the entire accident report. I looked at the clock and for a fleeting moment I thought, "I hope that's not Rosie", she had a tendency to be late for work, but I thought even she wouldn't be an hour late. I was wrong.

Her car stalled on the expressway and as she was trying to start it, she was rearended by a dumptruck. The car was dragged about a quarter mile before it spun out from under the trucks bumper and she was thrown out the back window. She didn't have her seat belt on because she found out then that it had been cut out by the previous owner. Her passenger lived to tell us what happened.

It was the most happy/grievious time of my life. I was devastated and angry. I cried for the longest time. I questioned everything.

I finally took a spiritual journey and came to realize she was never mine to keep. No one is here for the keeping but as a gift to remind us of how precious life is and how soon it can be taken away.

So in my mind she will always be the fun loving , beautiful 22yr old girl I knew, the one I laughed with everyday we were together, the one who used to try on prom gowns in stores, the one who fell asleep under my end table on New Years, the one who made it a joy to be around.
I don't visit her grave anymore because I don't think of her as being there. She is alive in my thoughts, she is the glimpse of a brown haired girl I see standing the same way she used to stand until she turns and disappears around the corner and she is the reminder of living each day as if it is your last.

She helped me understand my own mortality. I believe we are all a link in an incredible chain of life, recycled into the next where we meet again and start all over.

I don't question why any more, just why not?

~A~

 

[Sshafer]

Death

Neonlyte I glad if anything I posted helped you and for thoughs that it offened well thats life. The point I was trying to make is Don't worry about death. Let death take care of it's self get on with living life stop and smell the rosie's. Seize the day enjoy get up every morning and say this is what I'm going to do. Each one is given a measure of time. Some wast it let it slip through there fingers and say in the end I should have done this or that. Their life is emtpy. But their are some who take what they have been given and make the most of it and live life to the most. As I have said thats my out look on life and death. Don't put that trip off take it. Don't asume there is always tomorrow so live life. If you love ypur wife or girl freind tell her. If you got a freind you think that drinks to much sit him down and tell them and your their for them to help if they want it. But most of all live life so it please's you. Don't live life the way you think that will please other people. You weren't put on this earth to please others dare to be differnet. That the trouble with the world today everyone is worryed about what someone is going think if they do this or that, fuck'em as long as it doesn't hurt some one ealse do what you want. Well I guess I've to much like I said there will be some that will think I'm a nut but ,so be it. Enjoy your measure of time and let death take care of it self.

 

[Guest]

I’ve been at two deathbeds in my life, the last my mother’s three years ago. The first was a profound and—for lack of a better word—beautiful experience; it was as if that woman’s death was a gift to me, amidst her gift to everyone else present. We were able to say she had a “good” death. I want one too.

Many of you know already that, being Mexican, I grew up with Death as “part of” my life. When I was very young La Muerte was a sugar skull, a doll, a mask. Later She became a bit whorish at times, or would even impersonate a grande dame—La Catrina. Death for Mexicans fits our needs throughout our lives, helps us live better knowing we will have a personable, even friendly partner at the end. It may sound simplistic, but living with this persona of Death can make it easier finally, e.g., when ‘the time’ comes—we meet a friend, a compadre, a companion.

So, I think I have been partnered with my mortality all my life. There was a time when it frightened me, but no more. I know from experience that one of the most wonderful things you might do for someone is help them die. If you love them it can be awful (painful) for you (only for a time though), but it is a gift unparalleled.

Perdita