Dear Beebizzy,
Whatever you may read here or elsewhere to the contrary, human life is an amazing, mindboggling gift. We're all made up of the same stellar detritus that forms all the rest of the dead universe: stars, planets, asteroids, interstellar clouds and junk. But us! Us! We get to feel and think and wonder too!!! To ponder, explore, reason, theorize, experience! To have another more than forty years ahead of you as you do indeed have and to look on it as negatively as you do, yes, that's what I call pathology. It may not be intense pathology. It may not be as bad as the situations of the large majority of PC members.
But your future is, to me, very much like the absolutely ultimate Christmas morning when you're five years old and have happy, prosperous and loving parents. Ridiculously Pollyana-ish? Entirely unrealistic? Not grown-up? Silly? I don't think so. And I surely haven't spent my life feeling this way. There's truth in what I say. Worthy of exploration on your part. What does this guy mean? Why is this old man pushing existential ecstasy on me here on PC? Because looking at your future as gray is tearing up the winning lottery ticket. Using the deed to your house to light a fire in the fireplace. Selling your brand new Ferrari for five dollars.
I haven't the slightest doubt that your views and feelings are in every possible way as sincere and well thought-out as mine or anyone else's. No. But you do need to know, and should try to accept, that there really are other possible ways of looking at your future. You may not choose to accept them right now. Fine. Things may continue to appear to you as gray as they apparently do. But there's really no telling what can happen tomorrow or the day after. You may be walking down the street next week, turn a corner, and be overcome by the overwhelmingly wondrous possibilities in almost all human life, including yours.
Take very good care of yourself!
Ygrec 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beebizzy
I fully agree with you, Ygrec23, about accepting our mortality and how serene and even stimulating this can be. But I would like to put forward a distinction between accepting mortality, and accepting the time between now and then (if that distinction is valid). I am not, for example, brooding on my mortality or my demise - not at all. I am brooding on the years between now and then not seeming to me to hold much promise as compared to the years behind me. And 'brooding' is even a strong word, it's just something that seems like a fact to me now, ingrained, I don't much dwell on it like one doesn't dwell on the sky being blue (if we're lucky  ).
Don't get me wrong - I don't dispute that any of the above is less pathological  I would agree that it's not ideal that I have written off my remaining years and just feel like I have to 'get through it' till I'm done. But I don't feel like my mortality is imminent, if you see what I mean, I do acknowledge there is plenty of time left.
I don't know if I'm making any sense - put it down to me being from the same part of the world as Venus (close enough...) |
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We must love one another or die.
W.H. Auden
We must love one another AND die.
Ygrec23