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Has realizing that our time on earth is finite changed how you see life? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by marc4267@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Lately I’ve been thinking about death: it happens to all of us, it’s something normal, it will happen to me, I could even die tomorrow. Even if I don’t want it, I will die, like everyone else. I’m not exceptional just for being me. No matter how many gods I invent, no matter how many opportunistic preachers I pay because they promise to save me.

I’m just a monkey among 8 billion monkeys, I’m insignificant. Nothing wrong with that. It is what it is.

My life so far: take the path of least resistance. I have a job I don’t like much but I do it good enough so I don’t get fired, I enjoy cooking, fishing, poetry and drawing, hobbies that are cheap. I don’t need to keep up with the joneses.

There seems to be a perception that somebody like me is a loser, lazy, somebody who fails to live up to his potential, maybe I should try to do something exceptional with my finite time on earth, leave a legacy…

But that doesn’t appeal to me. After I die I won’t feel nothing, nor will I care about a legacy, so what’s the point?

Did realizing your time on earth is finite change how you see life?

Feel free to point out if this is me being depressed or if I need to snap out of my misanthropy, as somebody put it. I don’t consider myself depressed but after seeing and reading what humans do to other humans I don’t trust the better angels of our nature can make the world a better place.

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[–] dingus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's weird but I started fearing death this year. I had some sort of significant mental health issues and at some point I was making quite a few suicidal gestures, but I didn't feel like I was close to any attempts.

In my many attempts to treat my mental health, I had a therapist encourage me to try listening to podcasts to cope with something in particular.

So I found one and actually enjoyed it. It was on Taoism. Well...a lot of Taoism deals with death in a way...like understanding that we are born from the earth and that we will return to it. I found out some time into listening that wise and thoughtful host of the podcast had died maybe 5-10 year ago.

Something snapped in me and I started in an outright panic from that point on, fearing death. I couldn't listen to the podcast anymore. I was going to die. I don't want to die. I would walk around public places wondering how everyone was just walking around knowing they were going to die. Why aren't we all trying to solve this as a collective?? Why don't people care that they are going to die????

And that fear and panic seems to have stayed with me. Thankfully it's not as all pervasive, but it's still there.

For some unknown reason, even with that fear, I have since learned to ride a motorcycle. I think about the chance of death sometimes when I ride it. It's higher now.

And at this time, I don't feel like I've "wasted" my life per se. But I'm finding that I want to do something else with it. But I just don't know what.

So that's where I'm at now. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do in life considering the fact that I will die.

I don't know what to do, quite frankly.

So realizing that I will die absolutely did change my perspective on life. I'm just not sure where to take it.

I don't think what you talk about is depression per se. It sucks that we are gonna die. And I'm not interested in making a legacy either. I won't be here to enjoy it.

But I wouldn't call your life lazy necessarily either. The true Taoist enjoys life for what it is. You don't need to be the best or the hardest worker to enjoy the world, nor should you necessarily be.

Idk I'm sorry that this is so long and rambling. I guess what I'm trying to say is I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing. Taoism is an interesting philosophy (iirc it's also a religion, but I'm more interested in the philosophy) that may help you or it may do nothing. But idk it talks about stuff like that I guess.