Your Own Mortality (1 Viewer)

[t_rav_82]

At a pretty early age. 8 is my first memory regarding thinking about it. And then again in my early 30s when I found out my dad had a heart attack in his mid 30s which caused a lot of blockage for him that he still deals with today. That knowledge was one of the catalysts to a pretty big lifestyle change for me.

Two years ago I was in a horrible car accident. Flat lined a few times in the hospital and spent about 9 months recovering from surgeries doing PT, etc... Surprisingly I didn't think about my mortality then.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

The world is a better place with you in it.

Yes, the question is do I want to continue to be a part of the world, if I'm not getting any enjoyment out of it?

 

[Devildog]

Catholic school.. Had no choice, there was lots of talk of ‘hellfire and brimstone’ in the religion classes we were forced to take as part of the curriculum in grade school, true story .

Which Catholic school? I've been in 2 and they were both very different.

 

[MarylandWHODAT]

I haven’t thought about my own mortality however, I recently had a mortality check, if that makes sense. I used to live in California throughout elementary and middle school and moved out east when I was 13 so I obviously went to high school out here. Fast forward to a Facebook post an old friend had. It was a list of the students in the class I would have graduated with out west. The list was of those who passed, and it was disturbingly long. One name in particular stood out and has, for lack of a better term, haunted me since I’ve seen it. I hadn’t thought about this person in ages but once I saw the name, memories came flooding back in and now this person is gone. I’m trying every avenue that I know to find out the how. Public records, person search anything but cannot find one iota of this persons passing. If anyone has a link or can point me in the right direction for finding this sort of thing, I would be grateful.

So, it was this wakeup call that told me, we are not here forever. We are not invincible. We are not forever. It really has thrown me for a loop. This whole experience has reminded me of an old song lyric:

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Which Catholic school? I've been in 2 and they were both very different.

My parents were divorced when i was very young, there were contentious custody battles and i bounced around a lot between them and moving.. so i attended a total of 9 different schools before i graduated from high school , and approximately half of those schools were catholic, the other half public .

 

[Devildog]

My parents were divorced when i was very young, there were contentious custody battles and i bounced around a lot between them and moving.. so i attended a total of 9 different schools before i graduated from high school , and approximately half of those schools were catholic, the other half public .

Man, that's rough. My wife went through something similar and it still affects her.

 

[saintmdterps]

Sorry to quote myself, but i just wanted to apologize to everyone since i was tired last night when i posted this, and i think i conflated the terms ”hellfire and damnation” with “fire and brimstone” to come up with “hellfire and brimstone.”


But going back to Catholic school, they didnt like me very much in there since ive always been a ‘questioner’.. Example, around the time i was in grade school, catholic dogma was changed in that it had always been believed that if a baby suddenly, tragically dies between the time it’s born and the time it’s baptized- it would be sentenced to purgatory…. An innocent little baby.. it’s apparently becuase we are all born guilty of sin, you see … anyway, at some point , the powers-that-be in the Vatican decided that instead of being sentenced to purgatory, these babies would instead take a detour to somehting called “Limbo”.. that’s a true story, or at least the way it was explained to me in the 1980s.. ’How low can you go’, indeed .. So yours truly, being the inquisitive 9 yr old i was, started asking questions about how people can just change rules like that.. and did the directive come straight from the Big Guy upstairs, or does that work exactly ??

Most religions dont like it when their followers ask questions, i wonder why.

Our church (Church of the Brethren) has a Q & A session after the sermon. I wouldn’t have it any other way

I believe we pick our course through this world. We pick our parents and the events that occur in our lives. We have something to teach and to learn. When those are accomplished we pass on. The events that pain us may be part of someone else’s walk, not ours.

We know all this as we descend from the Spirit world to the tangible world. The last thing that happens before we descend is the Angel presses its fingers to our lips and says “Shhhhh” which creates the dimple under our nose. We cannot speak of the spirit world, nor are we allowed to remember, lest we or others take a shortcut back to the Spirit world.

To me, this is the only adequate explanation for suffering.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Our church (Church of the Brethren) .

that's interesting - i'm playing a documentary about MLK Jr in Speech class and someone had a Church of the Brethren sign during montgomery bus boycotts

eta: correction - it was the march on DC
that makes more sense

 

[saintmdterps]

Which Catholic school? I've been in 2 and they were both very different.

I went to Catholic school until 4th grade. It was pretty progressive and was 50/50 lay teachers vs nuns. I really don’t remember being hit figuratively upside the head with eternal damnation

I was literally hit upside the head for rule violations, and I earnt every whuppin I got

 

[Devildog]

I went to Catholic school until 4th grade. It was pretty progressive and was 50/50 lay teachers vs nuns. I really don’t remember being hit figuratively upside the head with eternal damnation

I was literally hit upside the head for rule violations, and I earnt every whuppin I got

Same!

 

[0rion]

I think about dying probably more than I should. Started after I had kids. I don't want to leave those guys and want to watch their lives unfold.

 

[Dago]

Even being plenty old
And even with my father passing this year, I’m still not sure I have a proper sense of mortality— it’s kind of like I’m in a boat drifting with the current only vaguely aware that the water will run into land eventually

I couldn't have worded it any better.

 

[Dago]

My first time I seriously thought about it was when I nearly died from Guillain-Barre' in my mid-20s. I was paralyzed and my heart and lungs were too weak to work on their own...definitely thought I was going to die.

More recently after all my medical issues, losing my business, and my marriage I came very close to committing suicide. Now I try to primarily focus on the things I can change so while I am aware of my mortality, I really don't think about it as there is nothing I can do to put it off other than not be too stupid and being reasonably healthy

 

[Consigliere]

Anybody who has written a will has contemplated mortality. Actually it is pretty fun to include jokes and insults in a will - the ultimate last word.

As to what it will "be like" after death, it will likely be very much like the 13.8 billion years before we were born. Less fun, but not bad at all.

As for my body, I'd prefer it return directly and naturally to the soil so it nourishes plants and stuff. It started and will end up as stardust anyway.

 

[Paul]

I went to Catholic school until 4th grade. It was pretty progressive and was 50/50 lay teachers vs nuns. I really don’t remember being hit figuratively upside the head with eternal damnation

I was literally hit upside the head for rule violations, and I earnt every whuppin I got

Yeah I was a Catholic school kid from K-8 and never got overly threatened with damnation. I was a good kid (sneaky) and managed to avoid a lot of arsewhippings from the surprisingly powerful nuns (my grandma was in good with them).

Anyway, I’ve “accepted” the fact that I have an expiration date and there’s nothing I can do about it. I honestly can’t tell you how I feel about that - I’m not sure if I’m scared, angry, or just don’t care; it’s weird to think about.
I did tell my wife that if she outlives me, I want one of them Middle Age, old school Viking type deals. Put my sexy naked body on a wooden boat, sail me out, and then have the archer hit me with a burning arrow in the middle of the lake. “He went out in a blaze of glory.”