Advice: How do you deal with looming non existence?

[AMT]

Mainly for the fellow atheists or those who don't believe in an afterlife...

How do you handle the fact that life ends? To me, that's the biggest issue I've found. Bad enough to hamper my quality of life and keep my up sleepless nights. I could go into more detail, but to me the worst thing in the world is that life ends, and with it me, who I am. I don't want to go away, but I know I will.

So for those who feel the same way or similar, how do you handle it?

[Flagg]

Nanobots. I plan to live forever.

[Tony Stark]

Nanobots. I plan to live forever.

Same. Failing that though, i just don't give a crap about death absolutely no point in worrying about it once you have your will done.

[Tribble]

Well, if you'd like to know, this quote from Robots and Empire kinda sums up my viewpoint (though I admit I'd like to delay the death of my personality and intelligence for as long as possible):

Baley’s voice was growing weaker. Though Daneel sat motionless, his face was in the unusual condition of reflecting emotion. It was set in an expression of concern and sorrow. Baley’s eyes were closed and he could not see that.
“My death, Daneel,” he said, “is not important. No individual death among human beings is important. Someone who dies leaves his work behind and that does not entirely die. It never entirely dies as long as humanity exists. --Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Daneel said, “Yes, Partner Elijah.”
“The work of each individual contributes to a totality and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives--past and present and to come--forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time. Even the Spacers are an offshoot of the tapestry and they, too, add to the elaborateness and beauty of the pattern. An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole?
“Daneel, keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you. There are so many other threads, each valuable, each contributing..."

[Mr Bean]

Many years have passed before I existed. Many more will pass once I am gone. Whenever my mind turns to my own end or brief mortality I content myself with the fact I managed well enough before I existed. I assume I'll do just as well after I'm gone.

In other words... denial
It's such a delightful human habit.

[Borgholio]

I just try not to think about it. As an athiest, I don't believe in God. However, it's quite indeed possible that I'm wrong, and after I close my eyes...I wake up on a cloud strumming a harp or something. Or more exotic, I wake up on a bed in a new body created by aliens or future humans whom have managed to capture my consciousness at the moment of death. No telling what will happen.

[Scrib]

I...don't? I don't know how I exactly deal with it tbh. I just move on with my life content in the knowledge that both society and biology will help me move past such things, most likely by keeping me too busy to worry. Failing that the thought of non-existence is simply not terrifying. Permanent existence on the other hand... The greater horror of death comes in how it makes your priorities and life look when you know it'll all end.

I could perhaps come up with some existentialist quote that summarizes it but they're often not convincing (and smack of rationalization).

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

If life is finite and that end bothers you, then live each moment to its fullest. Life, then, is here to be enjoyed.

A good movie is only two hours long. Do you worry that the movie is going to end, or do you enjoy watching the movie?

[madd0ct0r]

we're made of stardust

[Gandalf]

So for those who feel the same way or similar, how do you handle it?

Make the most of it.

Live your life how you want to live it. If all you want to do with your life is sit on your arse and eat spaghetti while watching sitcoms, then do it. If you want to just roam the world, do it. As long as nobody's getting hurt, there's no issue.

That way, at the end you can at least say that you did it your own way.

[Torben]

Do what you can with what you've got where you are. Live life to the fullest. Enjoy every moment. Pick a mantra and run with it. Having seen both parents and a number of close relatives pass on, I look at it this way: everyone is going to die, so as long as you lived your life as best you could and enjoyed the time you had, whatever happens after will happen. No sense worrying about it because, well, we don't know what it is and can't change it if we did.

[Iroscato]

For the last few years, I have done everything I can to fully face my own mortality, and accept the fact that one day I will die, and everything I do in my life will not change this.
Far from it becoming a paralysing fear, it's become one of the most liberating revelations I've ever had. Life is short. Make the most of it, because there is no second chance, no heaven or hell, no reincarnation. Once you're dead, that's it.
Also, death itself for me is neutral at worst. My concsiousness will cease to exist upon death, I will no longer be aware of my surroundings and will no longer have thoughts.
And consider this: we are human beings, eventually we get bored of things, no matter how stimulating they are to begin with. Spending an ETERNITY in paradise would eventually become a nightmare. Not a hundred years, or a million, but INFINITY YEARS. Fuck that, I'd rather live a long and fulfilling life, and then rest forever, having played my small part in the world.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I plan to live well enough that I'm fondly remembered, and do what I can to make my friend's and family lives as happy as I can.

I tihnk this quote sums up my view:

"It matters not how we die, as long as we die better mean than we thought we could be and no worse than we feared."

[Malagar]

Personally I don't really think about it, not sure if it is because I have accepted it or because I am in denial about it.

However if it worries you too much then I am aware of one form of immortality that you can try to work towards: Being remembered, make (at least some of) humanity remember who you were and you will live on (sort of) in their memory.

[Oskuro]

I'm personally more concerned about the moment of death than the concept itself, about the anxiety of knowing it is all about to end.

Then I remind myself that I can't remember when I fell asleep the previous night, that I didn't really exist as a sentient being until the dreaming kicked in at the end of the night.

When it comes, it won't matter, because you won't remember it..... Dying is, in essence, losing the ability to remember you are alive. So, as many have said, best to focus on what you are doing and what makes you happy.

And nanobots. Although I want a robot body with tank threads.

[Formless]

If you are thinking of it as "looming", then not only have you framed your thinking in an ominous way in your mind but given it an immediacy that is probably unjustified (probably). Think instead about what you plan on doing today or what you are enjoying right now, and just not think about death until its actually upon you. Great things aren't usually accomplished by those who obsess over the uncontrollable. Just know that you are going to die, but you are going to do a lot of things before then that will outlive you.

Oh, and what Oskuro said about sleep. Actually, for myself my "experiences" with epileptic seizures (or rather, the total lack of mental awareness during them) kinda took some of the mysteriousness out of "non-existence", as you call it.

[Scrib]

So for those who feel the same way or similar, how do you handle it?

Make the most of it.

Live your life how you want to live it. If all you want to do with your life is sit on your arse and eat spaghetti while watching sitcoms, then do it. If you want to just roam the world, do it. As long as nobody's getting hurt, there's no issue.

That way, at the end you can at least say that you did it your own way.

Why does someone being hurt matter? After all, non-existence will take us all eventually no? There is no punishment, no universal outrage. What is to stop me from indulging my desire to collect human toes? This is what I mean: the things that people say give life meaning when you ask almost always fall within socially acceptable or valuable means of expression. Benign hedonism, procreation, relationships etc. All quite convenient no?

[XaLEv]

Nanobots. I plan to live forever.

What's your plan for dealing with heat death and possible proton decay?

[Purple]

I don't. Seriously, there is nothing to deal with. I am and thus I am. And when I am no more than I shall be no more. Since there is no god or afterlife or anything like that there is nothing intellectual or philosophical about it. And since not being means I won't feel bad about it there is nothing to fear either. The whole thing is about as emotionally and intellectually charged a thought as "the sun rises in the east" or "the coordinates of a pixel on a computer monitor are usually measured from the top-left corner".

The best I can offer you is a shrug of the shoulders and a meaningless "yes, and?"

[General Zod]

I simply don't give a fuck. There's absolutely nothing I do that's going to change the fact that at some point in the future I cease to exist, so why worry? If you're free-falling for ten thousand feet without a chute are you going to panic the whole way down or shrug and enjoy the view?

[General Zod]

So for those who feel the same way or similar, how do you handle it?

Make the most of it.

Live your life how you want to live it. If all you want to do with your life is sit on your arse and eat spaghetti while watching sitcoms, then do it. If you want to just roam the world, do it. As long as nobody's getting hurt, there's no issue.

That way, at the end you can at least say that you did it your own way.

Why does someone being hurt matter? After all, non-existence will take us all eventually no? There is no punishment, no universal outrage. What is to stop me from indulging my desire to collect human toes? This is what I mean: the things that people say give life meaning when you ask almost always fall within socially acceptable or valuable means of expression. Benign hedonism, procreation, relationships etc. All quite convenient no?

Have at it. Just don't start whining when someone decides to cap your ass because you tried to turn their appendages into a trophy without permission.

[Channel72]

Fearing death is almost a bit silly. It's like being afraid of what might lurk north of the north pole. Fear of pain makes sense, fear of loss, fear of failure, etc. But fear of death... that's like being afraid of never being born. It makes very little sense.

I'm usually content to think that in the last 5,000 years, humanity has gone from bronze age tribes to sending robots to Mars. I can only imagine what the next 5,000 years will bring. And while I'm a bit sad I won't personally get to experience it, I'm still quite happy to be part of a tiny slice of this little adventure.

[Starglider]

Expected utility of fixating on this is negligible, so I don't waste time on it. Rationally, the only relevant things to fear are negative effects of premature death on others, and to a lesser extent not achieving things you could/should/wanted to achieve. Of course in stressful situations you're going to get visceral, irrational fear directly from self-preservation instinct, but that shouldn't be triggering in a contemplative context.

[Scrib]

Why does someone being hurt matter? After all, non-existence will take us all eventually no? There is no punishment, no universal outrage. What is to stop me from indulging my desire to collect human toes? This is what I mean: the things that people say give life meaning when you ask almost always fall within socially acceptable or valuable means of expression. Benign hedonism, procreation, relationships etc. All quite convenient no?

Have at it. Just don't start whining when someone decides to cap your ass because you tried to turn their appendages into a trophy without permission.

That's fair. As long as that's a practical issue I'll factor it into my decision. I'm just trying to tease out where people stand on that whole make-your-own-meaning thing and the sort of problematic things it implies.

[Formless]

What problems? Everyone does it-- its not like you can force meaning onto someone else's life. Some of us are just more honest about where our life gets meaning than others.