Death and Dying

[Fallen]

I am thinking more and more that our ability to extend people's lives into the 90's and such on average just makes things worse. I've been to a nursing home lately and almost all the people there seem to be on auto-pilot. Like most of them should already be dead.

How do you want to die? I can't imagine anyone wants to spend their last few days hooked up to a bunch of machines, in a semi-unconscious state. Not that it will matter anyway, because your memory likely failed you two or three years ago. That really seems to be the direction modern medicine is taking us. I know that isn't how EVERYONE will end up, but if you live long enough, the odds of you having such a death steadily rise.

There doesn't seems to be a real solution. You can't just stop learning how to prolong life, even if the quality of it degrades so readily. I guess this is more of a rant thread than anything else.

How do you REALLY think you will die? Not hope, or want.

[AestheticDeath]

More than likely I will die of cancer. Brain tumor or the like. Family thing.

But if I don't I will most definitely find a way to die before I end up in a nursing home, or under someone else's care. If I cannot wipe my own ass, it's over for me.

I really don't like how long people are living. Like you say it is a less than desirable existence. But there are some people who would prefer to be alive, no matter how miserable they are. Whether it be enjoying some facet of life, or just being afraid of death.

[Anferis]

I don't want to sound morbid or emo or anything else ridiculous, but a shot to the head sounds like the quickest way to get it done. I'm not talking about for no reason of course, I mean whenever I can't wipe my own ass I'll just go piss off some serial killer.

That's not to say I want to die, I'm just terribly afraid of a slow painful death.

[SolitareConfinement]

how i'd like to die? in my sleep 15 mins after i got like 8 straight hours of dirty wet sex with kate beckinsale.

how i probably will die? most likely cancer or heart disease much like AD those are family things for me

[Asha]

I will die of toothache. I know this now.

[Alfster]

I won't die.

Ever.

[Fallen]

Then you're just going to look like that guy in your self-promoting banner add.

[TheSmooth1]

AIDS.

[Asha]

Lol I definitely just thought of the AIDS song from Team America

[Ignot]

heart attack.

[Allereli]

I'll probably get breast cancer, but won't die from it. The women in my family tend to live much longer than the men, so I'll recover, but eventually die from old age.

I wish I could go out like my maternal grandfather, who dropped dead of a heart attack at age 69 while gardening. Looking back on it, I'd rather be in his position than that of my step-grandfather, who degenerated from alzheimer's and ended up in a nursing home bed for five years before passing away last year (after the first year in the home, he never got out of bed).

[Tisket]

Well, isn't this just a feel good thread.

[Stanley Burrell]

Probably mouth or esophageal cancer here. Maybe lung, but throat and mouth cancers are rampant in my lineage. It's either been the blessing of longevity or early demise markedly in my gene pool. I'm hoping it's somehow sex chromosome-linked, since the men in my family have usually far outlived the vast percentage of women on my mother's side who've had chronic esophagitis and upper digestive track-related illnesses.

I seriously regret doing so many lippers. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. Goddamn smokeless tobacco. Do not do that. Don't. If you make it past vomiting once or twice, you are hooked beyond hooked. Do not do dip. Copenhagen is essentially what will be the Red Man's latent tobacco-induced curse upon the colonizers.

And now, to offset morbid deathly-doom deadliness train of thought talk:

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/i-has-an-elivater1.jpg

[Drisco]

Natural causes or an accident.

Although it may sound so cliché, I am really not afraid of dying. I hear of people dying all the time and I've been to funerals and a few of my family, and people I've know have died and I just don't feel bad.

I've been told I don't have feelings but when it comes to death I don't see what the big deal is. I always imagine when you die you become reincarnated or you just, I don't know how to explain it but just die and become nothing. Like a blackness and it is like you never existed and you won't be you. Like if you got hit in the head, knocked out and right when you pass out it is black and you aren't thinking, you are not even there.

I struggled with that explanation horribly.

[Asha]

The trick to imagining death is to remember before you were born.

[Stanley Burrell]

I was so frickin' sure this was Einstein, but Uncle Google isn't helping me out. Something like, "Man spends his whole life learning. And dies a fool."

If you want to see fearlessness of death through the idea of reversion, read Chang Tzu. His modus operandi is cryptic as fuck and I don't think any Westener, myself included, can come close to appreciating the shapelessness dust-to-dust analogy he builds. His philosophy is fucking crazy, but good crazy.

I got a fucking A- on this paper because I used the words I/me/myself/first-person/etc. in two opening paragraphs. This isn't Anthem. Bah.

[Asha]

Where I come from people refer to themselves at the beginning and the end of every sentence.

There.

[TheEschaton]

Complications due to diabetes. Everyone in my family has it.

I hope to go out in a blaze of glory pre-non-asswiping days, though.

[Lucas]

People often look at life as quantity rather then quality. They see life as some kind of giant waiting room where you read magazines, have sex, eat, shit, and play GS until they get called up to die. It's stupid. When you die, you die. It's how you spend the time that you're given that matters.

[Revalos]

I'm content with the thought of dieing alone and forgotten in some nursing home after relatives or the state believes it in my best interest to prolong my pathetic excuse for life at that point, but I'm a realist.

I always imagine when you die you become reincarnated or you just, I don't know how to explain it but just die and become nothing. Like a blackness and it is like you never existed and you won't be you. Like if you got hit in the head, knocked out and right when you pass out it is black and you aren't thinking, you are not even there. -Drisco

I'm of a similar mindset. If self consciousness is just a chance association of neurons and electrochemical impulses...how is it possible that it persists for decades? Why do we not wake up every morning not remembering who we were before we went to sleep? Or do we...and we just don't know it and therefore when we die, we just become a different person? Getting to start all over again is always a cool thought.

Or it could just be non-existence, also a pretty cool concept. It is the one thing that you can't actually imagine...probably why man created religion. You can't imagine what non-existence is like, because if you could, something would have to exist inside it to define it. Is it just like feeling endless blackness for eternity or is it like when you go to sleep and wake up 8 hours later without dreaming and it feels like no time has passed?

[Stunseed]

I'm going out like Atilla the Hun, son. Dead in the midst of an orgy. :)

[TheEschaton]

It's better to burn out, then to fade away.

[Stretch]

I'm going to die after a 72 hour marathon video game session like that Korean guy.

[AestheticDeath]

I've been told I don't have feelings but when it comes to death I don't see what the big deal is. I always imagine when you die you become reincarnated or you just, I don't know how to explain it but just die and become nothing. Like a blackness and it is like you never existed and you won't be you. Like if you got hit in the head, knocked out and right when you pass out it is black and you aren't thinking, you are not even there.

Hah, ditto to the nothingness part. I tend not to say it out loud though since most people don't like hearing it. I don't really believe in reincarnation anymore than religion though.

[thefarmer]

Oddly enough, ( and for better or worse) I already know what I'm going to die of, just not when.

There's some comfort in knowing how I'm going to die. I won't have to worry about being some 70-80-90yr old guy drooling, with no memory etc etc.

To be perfectly honest with myself, I just want to live long enough to see my kid(s) graduate college and perhaps see my grandchildren born.

[Snapp]

If family history has any say in it, I'll probably die of cancer. Living in DE doesn't help matters any.

This thread is depressing.

[Drew2]

My family lives for fucking ever. All of them. I think my great grandma just died at like 90-something. My grandmother had 10 children, has a dictionary of health issues, but is still kickin it. Probably in her mid 70's. My grandpa, her husband, had a brain tumor but kicked its ass. Mexicans refuse to die I guess. My mom's mom died of breast cancer in 2001, but I hope I'm safe from that. Bad news for my sister, my living grandmother had breast cancer but got it removed. So my sister is pretty much guaranteed breast cancer.

I'll probably die of old age. But like it was said before, if I can't wipe my own ass I'd rather just kill myself. Or like, jump out of an airplane with no parachute.

Someone make a Gay/AIDs joke now that Snapp and I have posted. You know you want to.

[Jenisi]

Death by black hole.

[Valthissa]

The trick to imagining death is to remember before you were born.

so said Lucretius

My dad died a month ago 7 years after he had a stroke.

A long, slow descent that eventually consumed all my mother's time.

but he died at home, sleeping

I have a 92 year old neighbor who is amazing. She never tells the same story twice. She is in her garden more than 4 hours almost every day. She can hold a lucid conversation for hours on end. If getting old looks like that, sign me up - but I doubt I'll be that lucky.

C/Valth

[Drew2]

I'm 23 years old and I tell the same story several times to the same person. I can't keep track of who I tell what. What a lucky 92 year old woman.

[Keller]

Rapture.

[Asha]

Ditto

[diethx]

This thread is depressing.

No joke :/

[CrystalTears]

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

[ViridianAsp]

Actually my oldest relative, was my great grandfather he lived till 98 he died one month before his 99th birthday. He was never hooked up to any machines nor did he lose his memory, he was sharp, age just finally took over.

Actually most of my family lives that long my grandfather is 77 and his oldest sister is 89, they are still pretty healthy. I'll probably live that long, I'd like to really. I want to be surrounded by my family and I don't want to end up a vegetable on life support, mainly for the fact that it doesn't hurt you the vegetable, but the people around you who care about you and I'd never want that.

[Asha]

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

:lol:

[Latrinsorm]

How do you want to die?Masterfully.
How do you REALLY think you will die?In my 40s or maybe 50s, of some obscure ailment that the doctors will assure me it's statistically impossible for me to have (which unfortunately will have no impact on my actual health).
Well, isn't this just a feel good thread.The best song I've heard in the past 2-3 years (and possibly the best song ever) is While We Have The Sun by Mirah. The first verse goes like this:

Let's take some time to walk together while we have the sun
You never know when tempermental weather's gonna come
And if you want to face the death you're never that far from
Just take a breath and sing to it when all the day is done

It goes on like that. I very very very strongly encourage everyone to give it a listen.
I've been told I don't have feelings but when it comes to death I don't see what the big deal is.Consider it from the perspective of those who live on after you've gone.
It's better to burn out, then to fade away.See above.

[Tisket]

Glad to see that you got your splinter quote fix out of the way so early in the day.

[Nieninque]

:lol:

You out of work again?

[Eoghain]

sky diving naked with no parachute on my 81st birthday :D

[iJin]

LOL

[thefarmer]

So here's a thought along the same tangent..

If you knew what you were going to die of (I do) and an estimate as to when that would happen... what would you do with the rest of your life?

Would you change anything?
Go crazy and do anything you wanted- live life to the fullest and be damned the consequences?
Not change anything at all?

[Martaigne]

sky diving naked with no parachute on my 81st birthday :D

Thanks for that mental image.

Christ. (But LOL too!)

[TheEschaton]

Good question Farmer, and not one I feel like asking right now.

[ElanthianSiren]

Refusal of medical treatment, generally speaking. Fuck dialysis.


for farmer: Not do anything differently at all.

[Asha]

So here's a thought along the same tangent..

If you knew what you were going to die of (I do) and an estimate as to when that would happen... what would you do with the rest of your life?

Would you change anything?
Go crazy and do anything you wanted- live life to the fullest and be damned the consequences?
Not change anything at all?

I like to think I'd be compelled to do all the things I always wanted.
It's shit that it'd take something so massive for me to take those steps.

''you might die tomorrow'' and all that crap doesn't inspire me.
I prefer to look back and say I did ok than to aspire to look forward and do anything differently than I think I would.
I'm probably going to do exactly what I would have if I'd been dying anyway.

Now if there was going to be an asteroid hit in 2012, I'd just wait till the day before then get into smack and probably H.I.M.

[Latrinsorm]

Glad to see that you got your splinter quote fix out of the way so early in the day.:)
If you knew what you were going to die of (I do) and an estimate as to when that would happen... what would you do with the rest of your life?

Would you change anything?
Go crazy and do anything you wanted- live life to the fullest and be damned the consequences?
Not change anything at all?This reminds me of another awesome song, called "At the Bottom of Everything" by Brighteyes, which prompted a similar set of questions the first time I heard it. I would do everything exactly as I'm doing now with the exception of looking over my will and last testament and seeing if anything needs updating. Doing that all the time would be more morbid than I am, so it's the one thing I'd appreciate the chance to take care of in the face of imminent death.

[Latrinsorm]

p.s. Tisket: did you listen to that song?? It's really good!

[Sean of the Thread]

I'm going out like Atilla the Hun, son. Dead in the midst of an orgy. :)

Actually Atilla the Hun died in his sleep choking on his own vomit and blood.


But whatever floats your boat.

[Deathravin]

Want to die: Ground zero at Necular bomb (falling from behind me). No notice, no seeing the bomb fall, no nothing. Just here... then gone before I know what hits me.

Probably going to die: Heart attack. HBP runs in my family. Could be cancer though. Also my retinas 'will' detach some day in the next 0-25 years (eye doctors can never give me a date) so I'll be blind before I go. So that'll be fun.

[Sean of the Thread]

If I was deemed terminally ill at any point I would go on a consequences be damned reign of chaos.

Do things like ram asshole drivers that piss me off (should be allowed now)...

Rob a grocery store wearing a bill clinton mask and speedos.


But I guarantee if I'm ever put in the terminal arena I will have a movie made of my escapades and they will be outstanding. I would request my posthumous oscar to be dipped in Mrs. Butterworth syrup and coated in my ashes.

[Deathravin]

If I was deemed terminally ill... I've got two words for ya... Loan Shark

[ElanthianSiren]

Rob a grocery store wearing a bill clinton mask and speedos.


:lol: ...good lord. Would they be pink speedos at least?

[thefarmer]

Refusal of medical treatment, generally speaking. Fuck dialysis.


for farmer: Not do anything differently at all.

Why fuck dialysis?

[ElanthianSiren]

Because it sucks.

Or are you just trying to throw Sean2 into apoplectic fits? Tricky devil :devil:

[thefarmer]

To answer my own question, my real main concern now is to provide for the future of my daughter (and any other children that may or may not come).

So I guess, I'd pick not change anything at all.

Random thing I just thought of: I guess it's hard really to pick the 'do anything fuck the consequences' bit if your illness won't allow it..

[thefarmer]

Because it sucks.

Or are you just trying to throw Sean2 into apoplectic fits? Tricky devil :devil:

Was this to me? and if so I don't get the part about Sean2...

[diethx]

Was this to me? and if so I don't get the part about Sean2...

I think because Sean2 goes nuts when ES mentions (having) diabetes?

[thefarmer]

I think because Sean2 goes nuts when ES mentions (having) diabetes?

Ah. Odd, but ok.

[Tisket]

p.s. Tisket: did you listen to that song?? It's really good!

Quit trying to suck me into your black hole of goodness and light. Bible thumper.

[Stunseed]

Actually Atilla the Hun died in his sleep choking on his own vomit and blood.


But whatever floats your boat.


Really? It was one of the ye old bastards. Coulda swore it was Atilla. Meh, looks like someone gets a Google point! Huzzah!

[AnticorRifling]

I think I'm just going to fade away. Nothing tragic, nothing emo, no medical blah blah. I'll just be done.

If I knew when I was going to die would I do anything different? Not really. I'd want to go ape shit retarded but really I want to make sure my boys are getting a family name that's still worth a shit.

[Sean of the Thread]

Really? It was one of the ye old bastards. Coulda swore it was Atilla. Meh, looks like someone gets a Google point! Huzzah!

We'll skip the google point and just award me the college point. Learned it a Eastern Humanities course.

[Sean of the Thread]

I think because Sean2 goes nuts when ES mentions (having) diabetes?

I don't go nutz just just have a running pool on the over/under of ES diabetes comments. :)

[Clove]

I don't go nutz just just have a running pool on the over/under of ES diabetes comments. :)ElanthianSiren has diabetes?!

[Trouble]

I'll probably die of liver failure (cirrhosis) or heart failure (congenital defect) with prostate or colorectal cancer being my backup 'choices' since transplants may be available for my heart or liver.

I don't want to be in a lot of pain and I definitely don't want to be a burden. I don't have any dependents so I don't have to worry about a financial or family name legacy.

If I found out I had a limited time, I'd party like it's 1999. Women, booze, drugs, trips to Ibiza/etc, and do all the shit I was too chicken to do when I was afraid of the potential consequences.

[AnticorRifling]

I'll probably die of liver failure (cirrhosis) or heart failure (congenital defect)


That would be a horrible way to go.