Death!

i don't expect there to be anything on the other side, if there is, well i'll be pleasantly surprised, or possibly eternally tormented who knows

For me it is "don't know and don't care". The illusion of my existence is real right now, this is what I have to work with right now, which is more than enough to occupy me.

Unlike you, Chumley, when it's time for me to die, I don't want to be present.

Id like to cash it in either

1working in a garden

2Prospecting

3at my drawing board

4 having my last orgasm

I don't want to die. Period. However, since it is inevitable, I accept it. Kicking and screaming.

At the hight of ecstasy with a robust young thing would be hard to top............er......well.......you know what I mean.

YEh, my last words will be "Dont tell my wife--she will kill me"

Ya gotta die...it is inevitable.

I faced what I thought was certain death a while back...and didn't get all upset. I had cancer...was wasting away to nothing (weight down to 114 pounds and looked like an extra from Schindler's List...and the prospects looked grim.

I don't even remember being scared...and during the darkest days, probably came to almost welcome the thought of the end finally coming. (I hated that Nancy was having to see me going through it.)

But I laughed and kidded and had reasonable days...even though a part of the ordeal was the complete loss of any sense of taste whatever (probably the worst part of the whole thing.)

But like I said...thinking the end was near was not the worst thing I've ever faced.

I imagine if a sickness is diagnosed...I will be a bit frightened...but I will handle it with dignity.

I'm not anxious to go through a long period of being a vegetable...but I suspect most of us will have that happen to us in a way that we cannot avoid.

In one sense at least it's logical to have no fear of the inevitable* so by that token choosing an earlier point of departure should be OK too.

*why fear what you cannot change?

One of my favorite authors of all time was James Tiptree, Jr (aka Alice Hastings Bradley, aka Alice Sheldon, aka Raccoona Sheldon aka Raccoona Sheldon). She killed herself and her husband of many years, as part of a murder-suicide pact.

Now I am not suggesting this course of action to you or anyone else, but I understand the rationale. She and her husband made the suicide pact when they were still both healthy, agreeing that when the time came, as they began to lose their faculties and live only in pain, they would end it all.

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/column/sfw13458.html

On a lighter note, having never seen your wardrobe, I will refrain from commenting on your lack of taste

Chumly...I'd like to think I will be lucky enough to be able to cancel my own ticket, so to speak...before senility, Altzheimers, or stroke make me captive to dying the other way.

Short of that, I hope that I will be lucky enough to make the most out of what is on my plate when the time comes. I like to think I am up to any circumstances.

Time will tell.

I will face that final moment.

Well, I for one would like to go in my sleep.

I used to have a great fear of death. Somewhere along the line it lessened.

I guess because I've made my life the best I can, and can leave with no regrets.

A few months ago I had to go under anesthisia for the first time in my life, at 49.
There was a time I would have been terrified of that.

But, when I thought about it, I realized if something happened, I just wouldn't wake up. I was ok with that.

Afterlife? I'd like for there to be one. I know my energy will go somewhere, even if it's to grow into a weed, or a piece of seaweed. It would be nice to have a consciousness, but who knows?

The more I live, the more I suspect trying to figure out what an afterlife would be like is just another expression of the fear of death.

Maybe we are all an afterlife of something else.

In actual fact we are all stardust..........well that's a bit romanticized, but the more complex elements (of which we are composed) have indeed come from the stars.

Oddly, this thread has made me happy?

Coming to terms with the Grim Reaper (well his terms in truth) might put your mind at ease?

somebody famously said that all of life is about learning how to die, dieing with peace of mind is supposed to be part of dieing well.

Everything that has a begining has an end. I would describe myself 99% atheist and 1% agnostic. Extremes are allways a bad choise. I would gladly change my mind if the evidence would point to life after death or some higher being, but it does not. People need to die and stars need to explode so there would be even better wolrd for next generation trought evolution. We are all part of recycling of the universe. I just hope people would understand that and devote their life to make the world a better place for the future, our children.

Star stuff, actually.

Yeh. Only Hoagy Carmichael can claim Stardust.

Dust I says.
Dust is the word.
The more complex elements are the product of dead stars.