Would you like to check out at a particular age?

[Rick Hunter]

Does anyone here find the idea of dying at a particular age to be attractive? Note: I am not talking about suicide or self-harm, anything like that. But rather, is there a certain age where you would like to clock out of this life and move on to whatever is next? I've lately been thinking that age 57 would be about right for me, I'm currently 45. I'm also coming to believe in reincarnation more and more, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the next existence will bring. It would be really awesome to be able to apply the lessons learned in this life in the next one, don't know if that is possible or not.

 

[Rick Hunter]

The biggest thing I find really appealing about the next life is a chance to start over from nothing, a karmic bankruptcy if you will. I've made a shit ton of bad choices in this life which I can't change. No, I haven't murdered anyone but I just carry the psychological baggage of bad choices. It's firmly fixed there, not going away. It's not a salvation issue, I know that God has forgiven me but that doesn't give me a chance to do part of my life over.

 

[dlw]

Rick perhaps your belief in reincarnation and the weight of your past sins (bad choices) are linked together. We have already been born again if we believe we are saved by Gods grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When i was born again the guilt of my past sins were gone. They may pop into my head at times but i thank God my Father for the salvation in his Son that i have been given new life and im forgiven.
I know that one day i will be rid of this sinful flesh body and one day will have a holy spirital body with out the sin of Adam in it. At the same time i am also sealed and sancitified with the Holy Spirit untill the day of my redemption.
If i believed i was going to be reincarnated into another sinfull body of flesh there would be no day of redemption.

 

[pigfarmer]

You must be having an interesting day with this on your mind, but I can relate. Hope you're not sitting there listening to too much Pink Floyd.

My wife and I have had quite a number of existential conversations lately because I think my interest in life after death, communication with the discarnate and reincarnation is rubbing off on her. We've been through quite a lot losing family and friends in just these past few years, some very recently so it's a current topic for us. Apart from family, in the past six years I've lost seven former coworkers all between age 57-64. Some were close friends, we all knew each other for decades and went through the trenches together. Disturbing but probably statistically normal.

I can't say I have a particular date in mind but have a sense, have had it for some time, that I just won't live that long. Extreme old age is not in the cards for me. Oddly enough that isn't connected with the loss of coworkers but having just turned 59 I couldn't honestly say I haven't thought about it. But, I also get the feeling that there's much more to death than just fading to black and that it's a natural process. One that may not be perfect.

Bad choices are relative, sometimes the passage of time brings a new perspective. What I used to cringe thinking about looks very different to me now and yet the only change has been the years between. There is value in getting to that point, for me anyway. I'm not sure that when it comes to Life, the Universe and Everything that there really is a wrong answer, we're here for the experience.

Now, having gone off the deep end I must say something crude. Go smoke a fat one, whack off and fix yourself a nice sandwich. You'll feel better

 

[Rick Hunter]

Rick perhaps your belief in reincarnation and the weight of your past sins (bad choices) are linked together. We have already been born again if we believe we are saved by Gods grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When i was born again the guilt of my past sins were gone. They may pop into my head at times but i thank God my Father for the salvation in his Son that i have been given new life and im forgiven.
I know that one day i will be rid of this sinful flesh body and one day will have a holy spirital body with out the sin of Adam in it. At the same time i am also sealed and sancitified with the Holy Spirit untill the day of my redemption.
If i believed i was going to be reincarnated into another sinfull body of flesh there would be no day of redemption.

Thanks. This is not a salvation issue for me but rather a practical one. We could argue the theological points ad infinitum. I don't think it's impossible that the Biblical concept of eternal life could be a series of lifetimes, all moving towards eventual culmination where the individual merges back into the creator from whence it came. I believe in God the Eternal Father and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Beyond that, my personal theology is constantly in flux and draws from a variety of sources. Currently I'm studying the sayings of the Desert Fathers and Plato's Timaeus. In God we trust, all others pay cash!

 

[Rick Hunter]

You must be having an interesting day with this on your mind, but I can relate. Hope you're not sitting there listening to too much Pink Floyd.

I'm more of a Genesis and Yes kinda guy.

My wife and I have had quite a number of existential conversations lately because I think my interest in life after death, communication with the discarnate and reincarnation is rubbing off on her. We've been through quite a lot losing family and friends in just these past few years, some very recently so it's a current topic for us. Apart from family, in the past six years I've lost seven former coworkers all between age 57-64. Some were close friends, we all knew each other for decades and went through the trenches together. Disturbing but probably statistically normal.

My dad is going through this right now and it's weighing on him.

I can't say I have a particular date in mind but have a sense, have had it for some time, that I just won't live that long. Extreme old age is not in the cards for me. Oddly enough that isn't connected with the loss of coworkers but having just turned 59 I couldn't honestly say I haven't thought about it. But, I also get the feeling that there's much more to death than just fading to black and that it's a natural process. One that may not be perfect.

To me, what lies beyond death is just exciting and something I want to know more than anything else. Even more than aliens and UFOs.

Bad choices are relative, sometimes the passage of time brings a new perspective. What I used to cringe thinking about looks very different to me now and yet the only change has been the years between. There is value in getting to that point, for me anyway. I'm not sure that when it comes to Life, the Universe and Everything that there really is a wrong answer, we're here for the experience.

That's just it, we are here for the experience. To what end? There's no way I can get the maximum benefit from the things I've learned in this life within the tiny amount of time contained within one lifetime.

Now, having gone off the deep end I must say something crude. Go smoke a fat one, whack off and fix yourself a nice sandwich. You'll feel better

Dammit, quit reading my mind!!

 

[michael59]

I don't really have a number. I just want to be able to choose before I become senile or hospital bound. I want to be able to take care of myself until it is no longer possible and then go to sleep and never wake up.

Canada is notoriously bad about taking care of senior citizens and I do not want to end up in a government home and get abused. I don't even have anyone to look in on me to make sure I am being treated well.

Pass the dube.

 

[pigfarmer]

Insomnia. Again.

Haven't you ever tossed something and then later regretted it? Sometimes the things you value least later prove to be very important. I needed a gadget recently and suddenly had a clear memory of me chucking it because I thought it had no value, and now I made work for myself. Dumbass. If there is a higher purpose to Life then maybe it's about adjusting your viewpoint, seeing things with both eyes open rather than the limited periscope view we normally use - often because we're all wrapped up in some mundane nonsense.

Kosher practices had a practical purpose behind them - don't eat nasty **** in an era lacking sanitation, which was most of human history. Religion is a form of communication, among other things, and that was the practical method used to disseminate that information. We take for granted the peace (and sanitation) many of us live in and are horrified at the occasional breakdown of civil order but again, most of human history has been rife with brutality and I think at the root of all religion is a way to create a moral code to be able to live together with relative decency. I never felt any one religion had any clearer idea about Everything than any other, or anyone else for that matter but they serve practical purposes.

My best friend died and we created a secret message to confirm contact after death, and being clever lads it's a good one. In the past two years I've gone looking for that message thinking that of all people he'd be one to deliver. Even if I had a medium tell me exactly what it is and I recorded it, made a big production out of taking the sealed postmarked envelope out of the safe and showing it so all can see, that still wouldn't prove ****. I'd loooove to hear someone say it and had an unnervingly close call on one occasion but people would still suspect I'd faked it and the only one who would be truly convinced would be me. In the course of looking into this I've had some unexpected experiences that have absolutely convinced me our consciousness continues when our body doesn't. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if we had absolute proof it does - I don't think we're supposed to have that answer. Or what our purpose here is, we all have to decide for themselves.

 

[Rick Hunter]

Another thing I've been thinking about are the lives of ascetics and hermits, which would include modern examples like Thomas Merton. All of these people were searching for the divine, and were willing to give up everything in life to find it. The Desert Fathers of the first few centuries of Christianity are fascinating, and they would not hesitate to go to extremes. Some of them lived like animals, without clothing or shelter and eating only what they could find in nature. I want to move in the direction of having a life in the divine realms of existence, and to gradually increase my presence there while decreasing my presence here as life continues. I have been engaging in practices towards this end. Daily fasting, meditation, mindfulness practices, and reading sacred texts.

 

[michael59]

Another thing I've been thinking about are the lives of ascetics and hermits, which would include modern examples like Thomas Merton. All of these people were searching for the divine, and were willing to give up everything in life to find it. The Desert Fathers of the first few centuries of Christianity are fascinating, and they would not hesitate to go to extremes. Some of them lived like animals, without clothing or shelter and eating only what they could find in nature. I want to move in the direction of having a life in the divine realms of existence, and to gradually increase my presence there while decreasing my presence here as life continues. I have been engaging in practices towards this end. Daily fasting, meditation, mindfulness practices, and reading sacred texts.

I thought you had a wife and kids.

 

[Rick Hunter]

Yes, I have a wife and one child. I should clarify, I don't mean checking out on my responsibilities towards them. One of my friends is a Catholic mystic with a very active spirit life and she has a husband and three children.

 

[pigfarmer]

Regulating food intake and meditation sounds like a good idea for anybody, jon't mindfully drive into a tree or anything for lack of paying earthly attention.

 

[pigfarmer]

Tuesday at 2:44 AM

wee hour existentialism wears a person out.

 

[Rick Hunter]

I think about existential questions constantly. Not sure I could go back to having an Earthbound mind if I tried.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I've always thought that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, and the only thing in the universe that doesn't really exist. Consciousness doesn't obey the law of Conservation like matter does, and this makes it a unique phenomenon, perhaps capable of transcendence in some manner. I've thought that after "you" die, "you" are everywhere at once, nowhere at all, the only phenomenon that can be no-thing, and thus be part of every thing (not that "you" would know it....) I don't believe in self-nature; kind of Mahayana Buddhist approach. I am a process, and extension of the universe, a temporary concentration of energies that calls itself "Todd". I read this book when was a teen and it had a big impact on me:

View: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Teachings-Tibetan-Buddhist-Sects/dp/1684220718/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=secret+oral+teachings&qid=1692307465&sr=8-1

I don't have memories or thoughts from before egg and sperm united and I grew a brain --even then, we must develop to diffe3rentiate our "self" from that hot burner and the outside world generally --and an ego is developed. After I die and am burned, there are no neurons operating to create that illusion; back to before egg and sperm.

 

[michael59]

Yes, I have a wife and one child. I should clarify, I don't mean checking out on my responsibilities towards them. One of my friends is a Catholic mystic with a very active spirit life and she has a husband and three children.

Maybe you should start now...

 

[pigfarmer]

I found that my interest in spiritual matters magnified during a time of serious stress - the death of a close friend. It took me a while to realize that my newfound interest was less spiritualism and more a grief process and the two clash, at least in my case. I know that's a bit obscure but this is playing Devil's Advocate with my own motives. To take that further, there are those who will wrap themselves in an insincere cloak of religion in times of crisis and may actually believe in what they are doing at that moment but when they put their head on the pillow at night the flash of hypocrisy comes. Like my ******* ex-wife, but I digress. Fancy way of saying there aren't any atheists in foxholes.

I have a definite interest in human consciousness, life after death and practice a certain degree of mindfulness. I think a lot goes right past us each day we fail to notice because we're too wrapped up in ourselves. I had to find the right ratio and that was a trickier balancing act than I thought. When I have that out of whack I tend to have less faith in my own judgement.