h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> ... No harm done. <<

Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to ensure no harm is done ... to the omelette ... assuming you wanted an omelette rather than say a chicken or something ...

I do hope everyone has seen the contextual advertising news story of the decade...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/17/gavin-barwell-date-arab-girls-twitter

Nothing better than a politician dropping one

I'm not sure this contextual advertising lark is actually working as intended, having searched for and got spare parts for a friends washing machine last week, I now seem to be continually bombarded with ads for guess what.

Bad news guys I already bought what I was looking for, but you are welcome to spend your ad budget on Hootoo

bottom, 2legs threads, blutac, penis size

I am just putting that in for the ads

peanut, it's what *you* search for, or what other sites you visit - not what you type here.

Well,*mostly* harmless.

Or harmly mostless.

It's a bit of both, usually: ads are relevant to your history and to the page you're on. Or both. Or neither. Depending.



I've been getting really morbid recently. Existential dread or something. I don't know why. Perhaps I should spend more time with real-life friends. It might help.

TRiG.

I'm amused by the fact that nowadays most of the "targetted" ads I see are for Amazon, and one specific book in particular. And since I wrote that book, I'm fairly unlikely to be interested in paying Amazon for a copy...

Scared of dying alone?

Me? I'm not. For as long as I remember having thought about it, my own preference is to die alone (in moderate comfort of course). That way, (hopefully) no-one will be discomfited by the event itself.
Having said that, of course the actuality may turn out different.

What is scaring is not the dying but the preceding process, the means by which it comes about.

How many others of you have this fear that fate is keeping something rather special, just for you?

I think some people are more scared of losing all their materialistic possessions when they die rather than the dieing itself

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2926#comic

Also, to answer the question in the subject line directly:

You're scared of dying alone because you haven't accepted the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into your heart and been reborn in the Holy Spirit.

Or, to put it another way, you're scared of dying because you're a rational adult and the concept of personal oblivion is disquieting if you don't have a childish superstition to comfort you.

I'm scared of being feeble and helpless and at the mercy of nursing home attendants who may be as slow as snails when I want them to come help me. I dread losing more and more of my eyesight and hearing so that I can't enjoy what I enjoy now. Death is an escape from all that, but also a step beyond the world I've gotten used to. I seriously doubt that the heavenly comforts the minister promised for my mother at her funeral will actually happen as he described. The only comfort I have is that the family's decision to have her cremated released her essence into the air, where she is circulating through a wider and wider sweep of the atmosphere.

When I die, I would like my ashes to be mixed with the soil under an oak sapling. That's the closest I can come to coming back as a tree. As it grows, the oak will make acorns, which will continue the cycle of life. Squirrels and bluejays will eat or carry away the acorns.

Paulh, you're last paragraph rang a bell for me, something resonant, something heard before ... yes, it was a something from a film, one of my favorites:

"They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses [Morales] said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds."

There are three stages of this aren't there:-

1. Living alone.
2. Dying alone.
3. Being dead alone.

1. I live alone (that is, nobody lives in my house with me) and that suits me rather well - at the moment. This may be worth a thread of its own.

2. I don't particularly want to die alone unless it is rather sudden. This (selfishly) may not be compatible with 1, above, but might be the pay off.

3. Being dead alone. That really can't be a problem for me can it. It might be rather more problematic for others, depending on the circumstances, particularly, how long I've been dead alone.

I'm still thinking around what the problem might be with the dying alone bit. This could be a short term problem or a longer term thing.

PP.

>>... you're scared of dying because you're a rational adult and the concept of personal oblivion is disquieting if you don't have a childish superstition to comfort you.<<

So what is the solution for the scared rational adult other than to have a childish superstition?

There is no solution. There is only acceptance, or not, of the inevitable.

This is one of the central things about being human - we expect there to answers to everything. And when there isn't an answer, or the answer is one we don't like - we make something up. And no matter how childish, ludicrous and transparent the lie we've fabricated for ourselves, if it's preferable to the truth, many of us will believe it.

I strongly feel that the most important part of growing up is accepting that there are some things to which there is no palatable answer, and in some cases, no answer of any kind. Just because a question is able to be formulated, it does not follow that that question can be answered.

[Off-topic ish] Classical determinism assumed an answer was always possible. Then came along the "modern" physics when it was discovered at some point it all had to be given up for probabilities. In mathematics it was assumed that all mathematical truth about natural numbers could be derived from a carefully chosen set of axioms, and then along came Kurt Godels Incompleteness theorem. Similarly it use to be assumed that all theories were provable and then along came Karl Popper to argue that theories could never be "proven" only disproved. Wittgenstein suggested "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", but I don't think that's in mans "nature".

I'm with paulh - I dread becoming decrepit in old age. When diagnosed with a potentially life threatening illness a couple of years ago, I did have a fleeting thought that thankfully I'd be spared a slow decline into old age. Having now got a good prospect of being cured, I'm devoting more time to keeping fit & well.

Among the patients I see at work, there are far too many who don't seem to have much pleasure in their old age - may partly be an attitude of mind as much as loss of health. There are also plenty who are lively in spirit despite poor health.
But the longer one lives & sees friends & contemporaries dying, the lonelier it must seem.

>> Among the patients I see at work, there are far too many who don't seem to have much pleasure in their old age - may partly be an attitude of mind as much as loss of health. <<

With the modern concept of needing to be useful to the economic system and the break-up of the (extended) family, maybe people of an old age, don't feel wanted / needed?