Inevitable Mortality

[NekotoKoara]

This is a question mainly directed at fellow atheists and non-believers but please feel free to respond if you are not an atheist as well. I have been an atheist for nearly 7 years. I grew up in the Methodist denomination of Christianity. One thing I often say to people is how jealous I am of Christians because they get to live, from my perspective at least, a life of blissful ignorance about their own mortality. Many claim and some seem to genuinely not fear death. I remember when I was a Christian and I most certainly was not upset by the fact of my eventual demise. As an atheist, though, every few months I go through these little bouts of what I jokingly refer to as existential crises. Last night I had one and I, as I often do when they occur, went to my husband for comfort. After our conversation, though, I felt the need to know how other atheists cope with the fact they will one day die and their consciousness will cease to exist. I know its a grim topic and humans seem to naturally dislike talking about this type of thing. But if you are comfortable talking about this, please feel free to post about how you have come to terms with death. Or if you haven't come to terms yet, feel free to post your own inner struggles with mortality if you want.

[miniboes]

Disclaimer: i'm probably too young to say anything useful/sensible on this topic, but here I go nonetheless. Take it with a few grains of iodized salt.

One response to these concerns I often hear from atheists is that the fact that life ends makes it infinitely more valuable. I think that's true, but it doesn't really help. The truth is that it sucks that we're all going to die, and I think we should definitely try to prevent it from happening wherever possible. Until we've cured aging, I think there's a couple ways of making the best out of this unfortunate situation:
- Live healthfully and safely. A healthy diet and plenty of exercise will increase your lifespan, but more importantly they'll increase your healthy lifespan. Wear a helmet when you go skateboarding.
- Think long and carefully about what you want to do with your life. I think imagining yourself looking back at your life on your deathbed is a useful way to think about it. What do you want to have done; what's really important?
- Time is extremely valuable. Think hard about whether a job you won't learn much from is actually worth your time. Don't spend an hour trying to get €10 back.
My favourite quote on this subject is "it's not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years." That's the real reason to live healthfully; to postpone the moment that your quality of life drastically decreases due to illness.

But at the same time, you have to accept the limits of being a human. You'll inevitably waste time on silly things like trying to find out which celebrities studied at the same college as you did. You'll make mistakes constantly. You'll fail to tame the instant gratification monkey in your brain over and over again. You'll probably slip into a depression or two. When you do all these things, the worst thing you can do is to hate yourself for it.

You need to find a balance between constantly wanting to improve yourself and being happy with who you are. Living a good life is a very hard thing to do, and you'll just have to do the best you can. That brings me to another favourite quote of mine; "The race is long, and in the end it's only with yourself." (I could fill a couple books with my pretentious quotes) Try not to compare yourself to others too much. It's an advice I fail to follow myself, but I can recognize that the one you really should be comparing yourself to is you; you as you were in the past, and you as you could be in the future.

One final thing; use an existential crisis as an opportunity to evaluate your goals, carreer, relationships, etc. It's one of the better moments to get some real changes going.

[brimstoneSalad]

Shifting your fixation from the self onto helping others and making the world a better place can be a good way to lessen the burden.
A life lived for yourself becomes meaningless as the whole thing is wiped from existence so quickly, like making a masterpiece on an "etch a sketch".
Helping to advance the moral progress of the universe is a different endeavor.

Try to become a better person, and inspire others to do the same. Be a force for good, and you'll be part of something larger than yourself; that's a better route to fulfillment.

Theism is a very fragile answer which can shatter too easily and leave the user in much greater despair, such as if his or her life was dedicated to fighting homosexuality and converting people to his or her religion. Upon the realization that these goals were harmful, there can be great regret for a life dedicated to a harmful lie.
Unless the theist happens to have been advancing secular good as well the whole time, and was not focused on conversion to any particular religion, then it's just business as usual once the window dressing falls away. But that's not *most* religion.

[NekotoKoara]

Miniboes, I appreciate your insight. And don't play yourself down just because you are younger. A lot of things you said are exact things I have thought about. I particularly like your comment about using my crises as a time for evaluation. Probably a much better use of all that energy. And as far as living healthily goes, the realization of my mortality has definitely had a direct impact on my choice to work towards becoming vegan. Obviously being vegan does not automatically equate to being healthy. But I hope to be able to use it as a means to pivot into having a more healthy lifestyle while simultaneously alining myself more closely with my views on morality.

This year has kind of been a turning point in my life brought on by experiences I had last year. I have been doing a lot of soul searching and trying to figure out what exactly I want to do with my one life. As brimstoneSalad brought up, shifting focus from oneself to others is a good path towards fulfillment. For a while now I have been trying to figure out what I can do to help humanity. I have a few ideas that I want to try to implement this year. Hopefully they will be successful.

BrimstoneSalad, your words are very resonant with me. Indeed, the things you have brought up are things I have thought about and am striving for. I honestly find myself often thinking about the world and all its inhabitants and the suffering many of them endure. I at times feel overwhelmed with grief at the fact that despite the progress our world has made, there are still so many people who suffer. And there are so many people who turn a blind eye to all of it. I'm hoping to find some way to make a difference before I pass. To tie this back to my main concerns, I do find, when I focus on others more, a kind of peace from my worries about my own mortality. But still, I have these moments where the realization of my eventual death strike me and the concept of the eternal void starts to terrify me. My biggest struggle is my continuos thirst for knowledge and truth. There are so many things I want to be able to witness that will more than likely never happen in the time I have on this planet.

Im sorry if my thoughts seem kind of jumbled. it's late and this is quite a complicated topic.

[brimstoneSalad]

As you shift your focus, you'll have those feelings less and less, and find them easier to dissolve as you reflect on your accomplishments for others (rather than personal experience) and ambitions to do good for others, particularly if you're working with others to do it, because you can reflect on a group effort that goes beyond yourself. You can imagine it working for hundreds of years even without you there, because it's something you helped start.

As to getting on that path, the first step that's easiest and makes the most sense I think you're already doing. Moving toward a vegan diet, and reducing your impact.
Once you get your personal impact down, reduced by 99% or so, that last 1% becomes harder and harder because you'll find the causes of harm are systemic. That's when it's most important to start working on those problems and join other activists. People around you will also learn a lot from your example in just reducing your impact, though, as long as you're humble and use a teaching perspective.