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Post by ozT4para on Nov 1, 2009 7:20:56 GMT -5
I held my auntie's hand as her husband's coffin was pushed into the oven in the crematorium. I have never seen that before and it made me realise even more, that if there is nothing after this life, then we really are insiginificant. A life well lived has ultimately returned to the earth that we are made of. For me, my uncle is gone but I know it is not forever. I have watched that with my father's cremation and some others but felt a need not to with my mother. I know she wasn't in there anymore but chose to not see it happen.
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Post by ozT4para on Nov 1, 2009 7:25:44 GMT -5
As inscribed on my Mom and Dad's gravestone: "To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die". On my sister's headstone it says "God has her in his keeping, We have her in our hearts.". I agree that we each keep a little part of the people who have influenced our lives and it makes us what we are. Also that we give these people's lives meaning by the good things we take from them and use to make our lives and the lives of those we meet a little better.
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Post by Pony on Nov 1, 2009 11:35:34 GMT -5
Thanks, Doe-eyes....it's unbelievable the trials you face after an injury of c5c6 SCI - accessible housing being at the top of the pyramid. Most houses or apts are very unaccessible, especially up north where they love foyer with steps going down and steps going up and tiny bathrooms. Man, I was stuck in a basement for a while up north, where I contacted pneumonia from that bone-cold place. I could go on and on with these stories, but fact is, there isn't enough thought put into housing with a wheelchair in use. Those with money make out much better than those without.
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Post by Lord Chatterley on Nov 5, 2009 16:27:45 GMT -5
Lord Chatterley has been an atheist since the age of twelve and can therefore only offer advice as a Son of the Enlightenment. Hence, he agrees with the Ancient Greeks that it is 'better to be the slave of a poor man here on Earth, than a prince in the life hereafter' and though Aristotle is Lord Chatterley's favourite ancient philosopher, on the issue of death he finds much merit in the word of Epicurus and Lucretius: Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the absence of all awareness. Therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For there is nothing fearful in living for those who thoroughly grasp that there is nothing fearful in not living. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we do not exist. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. People sometimes shun death as the greatest of all evils, but at other times choose it as a respite from the evils in life. But the wise person neither deprecates life nor does he fear its ending. The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is death regarded as an evil. But just as he chooses the pleasantest food, not simply the greater quantity, so too he enjoys the pleasantest time, not the longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear them will not believe him. Lucretius: On the Nature of Things Therefore death is nothing to us, of no concern whatsoever, once it is appreciated that the mind is mortal. Just as in the past we had no sensation of discomfort when the Carthaginians were converging to attack … so too, when we will no longer exist … you can take it that nothing at all will be able to affect us and to stir our sensation – not if the earth collapses into sea, and sea into sky. Even if the nature of our mind and the power of our spirit do have sensation after they are torn from our bodies, that is still nothing to us, who are constituted by the conjunction of body and spirit. Or supposing that after death the passage of time will bring our matter back together and reconstitute it in its present arrangement, and the light of life will be restored to us, even that eventuality would be of no concern to us, once our self-recollection was interrupted. Nor do our selves which existed in the past concern us now: we feel no anguish about them. For if there is going to be unhappiness and suffering, the person must also himself exist at that same time, for the evil to be able to befall him. Since death robs him of this, preventing the existence of the person for the evils to be heaped upon, you can tell that there is nothing for us to fear in death, that he who does not exist cannot be unhappy, and that when immortal death snatches away a mortal life it is no different from never having been born. 'No more for you the welcome of a joyful home and a good wife. No more will your children run to snatch the first kiss, and move your heart with unspoken delight. No more will you be able to protect the success of your affairs and your dependents. Unhappy man,' they say, 'unhappily robbed by a single hateful day of all those rewards of life." What they fail to add is: 'Nor does any yearning for those things remain in you.' If they properly saw this with their mind, and followed it up in their words, they would unshackle themselves of great anguish and fear… Nor do we, or can we, by prolonging life subtract anything from the time of death, so as perhaps to shorten our period of extinction! Hence you may live to see out as many centuries as you like: no less will everlasting death await you. No shorter will be the period of non- existence for one who has ended his life from today than for one who perished many months or years ago.Thus, concludes Lord Chatterley, happy he who was able to know the causes of things, who tramples beneath his feet all fears, inexorable fate, and the roar of devouring hell.
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Post by Triassic on Nov 5, 2009 19:36:24 GMT -5
triassic feels compelled to remark that he cannot recall anyone posting in the 3rd person heretofore.
anyone care to try the Royal 'We'?
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Post by Dee Dee on Nov 5, 2009 20:06:43 GMT -5
triassic feels compelled to remark that he cannot recall anyone posting in the 3rd person heretofore. anyone care to try the Royal 'We'? - We, the royal Princess of Denralia, always do and so does our fellow Princess Doe.
- Devodiva88 says "we", when she gets her identity confused with that of Her Alter Ago, who does it, when she hear voices in her head. Can get rather complicated. We need either Immanuel Kant or a good psychiatrist to sort this out ;D.
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Post by ozT4para on Nov 5, 2009 22:17:58 GMT -5
We need either Immanuel Kant or a good psychiatrist to sort this out ;D. [/list][/quote] Ah the Philosoper's Drinking Song - a Python classic Immanuel Kant was a real pissant Who was very rarely stable. Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar Who could think you under the table. David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, And Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'Bout the raising of the wrist. Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed. John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. Plato, they say, could stick it away-- Half a crate of whisky every day. Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle. Hobbes was fond of his dram, And René Descartes was a drunken fart. 'I drink, therefore I am.' Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed, A lovely little thinker, But a bugger when he's pissed.
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Post by doe on Nov 6, 2009 3:59:27 GMT -5
triassic feels compelled to remark that he cannot recall anyone posting in the 3rd person heretofore. anyone care to try the Royal 'We'? - We, the royal Princess of Denralia, always do and so does our fellow Princess Doe.
- Devodiva88 says "we", when she gets her identity confused with that of Her Alter Ago, who does it, when she hear voices in her head. Can get rather complicated. We need either Immanuel Kant or a good psychiatrist to sort this out ;D.
We are sending the royal wave right at you Princess DD ;D
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Post by Ouch on Nov 6, 2009 4:51:44 GMT -5
- We, the royal Princess of Denralia, always do and so does our fellow Princess Doe.
- Devodiva88 says "we", when she gets her identity confused with that of Her Alter Ago, who does it, when she hear voices in her head. Can get rather complicated. We need either Immanuel Kant or a good psychiatrist to sort this out ;D.
We are sending the royal wave right at you Princess DD ;D I, Sir Windrider, speaking in the normal first-person, am always quite confused when the princesses begin to speak like this, often after a large and long feast, consuming much of the castle wine.
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annie
Full Member
Posts: 197
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Post by annie on Nov 15, 2009 17:01:16 GMT -5
This thread made me think of a quote from the movie "Jacob's ladder". The first time I saw this movie this quote really stuck out to me and releates very closely to how I feel about heaven, hell, and mortality.
"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."
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Post by Inigo Montoya on Dec 30, 2009 20:05:10 GMT -5
Sometimes I just don't understand myself... or why I feel like I need to do things. But I'm feeling a need to share this and to share it here, so... I hope buff doesn't mind me piggybacking on his thread. This morning I learned that a young girl I had worked with died. I wasn't particularly close to the child, but I knew her... a bright and beautiful girl... and her mom is a friendly acquaintance. It has kind of hit me harder than I'd have expected... I'm not sure exactly why... if it's because she's the first of the kids that I've lost... or what. Like I said, I'm not sure why I needed to inflict this on y'all... it should be a happy time of year... I posted earlier and then deleted...
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Post by Triassic on Dec 30, 2009 23:32:09 GMT -5
and so young...
i think it seems worse because their lives are still ahead of them...,there's still fun to be had, but no-boom, she's dead.
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Post by doe on Dec 31, 2009 19:21:40 GMT -5
Sorry to hear that you're hurting Four Leaf [hugs]. I agree with Tri, the fact that a child is involved is enough to make you sad about it. No time for a life to reach its full potential.....
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Post by Ouch on Jan 1, 2010 11:00:08 GMT -5
Sometimes I just don't understand myself... or why I feel like I need to do things. But I'm feeling a need to share this and to share it here, so... I hope buff doesn't mind me piggybacking on his thread. This morning I learned that a young girl I had worked with died. I wasn't particularly close to the child, but I knew her... a bright and beautiful girl... and her mom is a friendly acquaintance. It has kind of hit me harder than I'd have expected... I'm not sure exactly why... if it's because she's the first of the kids that I've lost... or what. Like I said, I'm not sure why I needed to inflict this on y'all... it should be a happy time of year... I posted earlier and then deleted... Actually, I had something similar happen to me, on Christmas Eve...actually...there was a death I was informed of that had no direct significance to me per se, (in a long roundabout way there was...) and I just was hit rather hard with it, and I couldn`t understand why...hope you´re able to feel better and move on through it soon.
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Post by Inigo Montoya on Jan 1, 2010 11:13:31 GMT -5
I'm sorry, Maely, that you're experiencing it too. The funeral home is tomorrow. I'm expecting it to be bad. I've only ever been one other time for a child... a teenager who'd fought cancer for years... it's just wrong. Hugs for your hurt... and thanks doe and mewantWUV (Triassic) and dolly for the pm (she saw it the first go around...) for your words they mean a lot.
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