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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2840 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Lost Another Friend Yesterday

    It's something that is going to happen to all of us in many different ways - Orlando, loved ones, ourselves - but we always abstract it, and deflect, and anonymize it.

I couldn't help but notice in a transition of your piece from Mark's death to your experience with loss as you've aged that you shifted from first person to second. I've found in my time with counseling it serves only to distance ourselves from experiencing our own story on a deeper level by deflecting it onto "you" or someone else. Usually, the next line is "What happens if the 'you's are replaced with 'I's." to see how it feels when 'owning' the words.

I guess that's my input of making small shifts in talking about death in America, because I think you're right. Talking about death and loss isn't something we delve on here. But we should, for exactly this:

    People just ... die.

    And they usually die in a cold room, surrounded by frantic people and blinding white lights. And alone.

    And that's just sad.

    Phooey.

And this:

    It should mean something when someone dies.

EDIT:

As an odd aside/duality -

    And they usually die in a cold room, surrounded by frantic people and blinding white lights. And alone.

This is how we are usually born, the difference being surrounded with people, then placed in the arms of our parents. And now the stark reality of the two is making me tear up. :/





goobster  ·  2839 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I couldn't help but notice ... that you shifted from first person to second.

What an interesting observation! You are right...

My intent was to write about the numbness I feel at friends dying, now. It has happened so much in the last 10+ years or so, it doesn't have as shattering of an effect on me as it once did.

I wonder if my atheist/humanist belief system has something to do with it. I see death as purely mechanical... there is no afterlife, nothing that is identifiable as "us" survives death, in my worldview.

So once their switch turns off... it is up to me how to process it. There is no worrying about them, or their afterlife, or anything like that, because I don't believe it exists.

I wonder if that makes me process the experience of death differently...

user-inactivated  ·  2835 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I wonder if that makes me process the experience of death differently...

In truth, I'd be interested in that as well. I don't know enough, though it's something I'd like to speculate, re: the finality of death in relation to the grieving process of atheism having a different impact...

Although, I'd like to plug as an agnostic, it's a small bit of comfort making myself believe my whole ancestral line is looking upon me. I'd like be going on a complete tangent here, but I think it'd best be reserved for one of those hot n' spicy rd/FanFic discussions.

goobster  ·  2835 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I find being an atheist makes the world 1000% times more interesting and fascinating, and it makes me want to experience all of it, even more.

I am only going to exist once. This is it. Everything around me is the most amazing experience, because there isn't "something better waiting for me after I die."

All of this exists because of unfathomable complexity developing over unfathomable timeframes, and all because of a few rather simple rules about this universe we live in. That makes every single thing - the smallest bug, pencil nub, or grain of sand - inconceivable full of amazingness, if you take a moment and really appreciate it.

That's what atheism does for me.

And since death is final and absolute, to me, it makes me incredibly present and connected to the world around me. I'm not gonna be here again. So let's enjoy all of it!