by kenpodragon 25 Replies latest jw friends
So I guess I am also troubled by the idea of living too long
Tera
The idea of out living your usefulness bother me too. My great grandmother lived to be 101 and spent the last 12 years in a home. My grandmother now is 89 and just entered a home. In both cases, they do not get a ton of visitors. That makes me sad.
My thought
Dragon
PS : Perhaps not so much afraid of dying, but afraid people stop caring that I am living
No I am not afraid to die. I am only afraid I will have to suffer for a long while before I die-in fact It is a prayer of mine -"please let me go quickly" I am 75- I watched my hubby suffer for awhile before he died with lung cancer, I watched my son die with gangrene for a long time- he went quick in the end -heart attack- I watched my most wonderful daughter die with breast cancer (1 year & seven months, )She was a great believer that she was going to see the face of JESUS. My Mother lived to 96- so I guess I have to think I could live a longer time. but my FRIENDS tell me I wont go for AGES!!!!! As the earth is a teaching place. & I have to learn Patience ( that I will never master i am sure)
But if you read on future post that I have" kicked the bucket"Know that I am happy to go!!!!
In fact I would like to stop the world & let me get off right now.lol
I suffer from mild panic attacks.
Until last night that is........... I had the worst panic attack and thought I was dying, wishing even i would. I thought I knew what a panic attack was, but not until last night.
It came out of the blue, no reason, no upset, and hit me so hard , I was in pain, my arms hurt, my chest was crushed, and i couldnt breathe. My back hurt real bad too, i thought i was maybe having an asthma attack or heart attack.
The reason I am pretty sure it was a full blown panic attack is that 19 mins after taking a 1 mg Xanax, i felt it fade away and I was fine. Except for the scared feeling of not knowing what really happened to me,,,,,,, why it was so bad. I am planning on going to doctor to rule out any heart problems just in case.
Point is, after that experience i am terrified of not being able to breathe. I was always afraid of drowning anyway and couldnt watch movies with people underwater, I would lose my breath.
But I am terrified to die if it hurts........and from what i hear that is the way alot of folks go,,,,, many times it hurts....... So if i could peacefully pass on with out pain like a crushing feeling in my chest I wouldnt be so afraid.
I feel I can honestly say "nope"
Chalk it up perhaps to my age and I am a young punk who feels immortality in youth, but I don't think that's the case.
I used to want to die. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I don't want to die anymore. I think it would suck to die and leave those I love, but I don't fear it. Whatever happens happens. I will figure it out when I get there. I spent too much time thinking about it already. I'd much rather think about living.
Y'know how sometimes you're so tired you close your eyes to sleep and you sleep so soundly that 8 hours or more may pass and you open your eyes again, thinking that you had just blinked only to realize that it was the next day? When you're asleep, of course, you're not aware of the passage of time.
I think death is like that. You close your eyes to consciousness here, and just like sleeping soundly as described above, you open them again to the next level of being, or whatever is next. I just personally think it's a new level of being, a little more spiritual, a little less material than this life. We start here as a product of evolution, a creature of animal origin, and on this next level however we are less animal, we really are loosing the "mark of the beast," the animal characteristics common to human evolutionary origin. The limbic system loses it tyrranical power, for instance, because we've got different types of brains now. And in this next level of being it is easier to make contact with the indwelling Spirit of God because the animal ego isn't causing us to resist this contact.
In short, we continue to evolve. And there's lots more evolving to do. We went from a smart molecule released here eons ago, evolved our complex brains, received a segmentation of the cosmic mind and continued to evolve. And there are, IMHO, many more such metamorphoses between this first little leap until we become pure spirits and can logically and consistently stand before, and recognize, the creator who put us here with great potentials and little actuals and left to evolve. Why should the unknowing physical universes continue to evolve from starbirth to stardeath and do it over and over, and we have no such future even though we can conceive of a First Cause and desire to be like It? I ask the evolutionists why we can't look forward to our own continuing evolution after this life? Is it because most evolutionists are also determinists, reductionists and my idea cannot be measured? Is it because my idea requires a philosophical First Cause? I'm an evolutionist, and I can dig it. I just don't have to measure it. Or prove it. If I'm right, there's nothing to worrry about. If I'm wrong, there's STILL nothing to worry about.
What magic could death, the natural dissolution of the human body, perform so that the animal origin human was spiritually ready to stand at the Center of All Things before the Absolute Reality in only one great leap? I think these are just pleasing fables. We've got lots more evolving to do. It's the Way of Reality, the Way of the Tao, The Way, for us to evolve to such spiritual and personal perfection that we will one day in the far off future emerge into eternity.
This represents to me the highest ideal of the application of evolution to produce perfected individuals for whatever the Absolute Reality has in mind for us next. But I do wonder why we go through, IMO, such a long universe career of evolution and adventure just to "roll around heaven all day" at the far distant completion of all this evolution. I don't think we do. I don't know WHAT we will do. But I'll bet it's something far past our poor imaginations.
Fear Death? No. I'm concerned about the MODE, but I can't wait to see what's next. And I'm certain I will close my eyes here in death and open them again in a new life, as a new being having taken another step in the myriad steps of evoloution AS OF THE SAME MOMENT. What's to fear?
francois
I think about death a lot less that I did when I was 'in' , strangely enough.
Back then I was worried that i'd 'fail' and have to face a vengeful death from the big man himself with birds pecking out my well loved body parts...
But now I feel calm about it all- I've lost so many people over the past few years that it seems a natural part of life on this planet.
I also have a fear of struggeling for breath as lyin eyes does - but hopefully someone will put me out of my misery.Many are helped on their way with morphine and I have seen the fantastic effects it can have when you're distressed- so i'd just make sure I had a large shot and go with a smile on my face;
I heard a quote the other day that you should make sure you have many stories to take with you and that you have a duty to have lived fully- I liked that ; it makes you LIVE and not fret.
Afaidd of Death?....Nahhhh, not the least..... now LIVING, that's scary!
I'm currently reading a book about real scientific studies about REAL and FAKE 'mediums' contacting those who have passed over ... very interesting ... controlled studies that bear out the TRUTH, we live beyon this life. (if I was upstairs I'd get the name of the book )
Interesting responses here Kenpo.
For myself though, I have no fear of death itself, nor do I fear pain. I can't say that I like the idea of death or suffering...but I don't fear it...if it happens it happens.
My fear is not for myself, my fear is for those who depend on me and who need me. I fear for them only...and I feel anxious that they may fret and be lost for a while...that is the only fear I have regarding my own death.
~Beck~
I've always been a little afraid of dying. When I was a witness it was even more pronounced. I think because the subject was always in front of my face. I was afraid to die when I was a JW because I wasn't quite sure I would make it into the new system. I didn't like meetings or studying my watchtower or KM. Now I am afraid because I don't want to leave my kids , the earth, and not really knowing what happens. jurs
Kenpodragon...
A year or so before I was a JW, it was Summer and I was in my mid teens. And I to like yourself grew up away from everything. I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself in my neighbors living room. Since it was the middle of the night and no lights were on it was very dark. I became very scared since I was somehow there for no reason and desired to go back home. I did not leave through the front door but started walking across the living room towards the wall which was the direction to my home. I suddenly found myself walking in the direction of my house but was about 50 feet above the ground. I remembered very vividly feeling the chill of the nighttime air and the foggy mist which was usually there that time of night. I kept walking in mid air above another neighbors barn and looking down on the old tin roof and then looked over and saw the family field and farm house. I suddenly woke up in my own bed. I did not turn on the light but walked over to the window. I removed the window screen and crawled out the window onto a lower section of roof. I was about 1:00am as I looked around and saw the foggy mist in the field and felt the chill in the air. I was then wondering if what happened was a dream or did something actually happen.
I am 43 years old now and it seems like it all happened last night. I think that experience made me think about God and what happens at death. It was then that I became curious and several years later became a JW when I was in my Junior year of High School. I studied with a teacher and after I relayed that story to him.....well you can figure out what he said to me. But the years I spent as a JW I often thought about that night and questioned what happens at death.
About 5 years ago my father was sick and did not want to see a doctor. I had moved to another state and traveled 3 hours to see him. Into my visit we had an argument and I actually told my dad to go F@#k himself and I left to go back home. A few weeks later, It was 4:00pm on a Friday and while I was driving from work I had the strange feeling that my dad was sitting in the passenger seat of my van. It was the oddest feeling that I ever had and I actally felt a peace with him there. I went home and started working on a house hold project which I was having trouble doing. I still felt my father was with me and I completed this task as if he was giving me some kind of mental guidence.
..........At about 6:00pm the phone rang and it was my Sister. She informed me that my dad had died at about 4:00pm that afternoon!!!
I don't know what happens at death. Like what you stated and what some of the others have commented on, I think death is what you make of it. I only hope mine will be quick.
