Re:Ask HN: How do you deal with the fear of death?
by jokethrowaway on Monday June 14, 2021 @09:52AM
(#27502531)
I try to tend to stoicism and optimistic nihilism.
If something matters to me I try to imagine how I would feel if I lost it and do that until it doesn't matter anymore. It's not a perfect process.
I still enjoy experiences but I'm ready to lose them and try to see the positive side and find purpose in making the right choice given the information I have. I don't castigate myself for making a choice that was bad in retrospective as that choice already happened and I have no control over that. I can just try to improve in the next one.
Thinking about loved ones who are suffering or are dead is probably the hardest thing to process but you have to keep your sanity somehow and get over things, eventually. If you don't do it now, either time will do it for you or you'll go insane.
For death, it's pretty simple. You won't have to make any choice when you're dead. What's to fear about something you can't control? Just accept it already.
If something matters to me I try to imagine how I would feel if I lost it and do that until it doesn't matter anymore. It's not a perfect process.
I still enjoy experiences but I'm ready to lose them and try to see the positive side and find purpose in making the right choice given the information I have. I don't castigate myself for making a choice that was bad in retrospective as that choice already happened and I have no control over that. I can just try to improve in the next one.
Thinking about loved ones who are suffering or are dead is probably the hardest thing to process but you have to keep your sanity somehow and get over things, eventually. If you don't do it now, either time will do it for you or you'll go insane.
For death, it's pretty simple. You won't have to make any choice when you're dead. What's to fear about something you can't control? Just accept it already.