When did the concept of death really, truly, sink in?

Chula Vista · 06-15-2017, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

a few beers/six-packs between us

Ya, that's the frosting version of a person. It's the cake version that really counts.

I mean, I've traded blows with a ton of you folks through the years, but this guy is taking it to a really different level.

SOULS FOR SALE: $199.99 special price. Good until midnight tonight.

The Batlord · 06-15-2017, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Ya, that's the frosting version of a person. It's the cake version that really counts.

I mean, I've traded blows with a ton of you folks through the years, but this guy is taking it to a really different level.

SOULS FOR SALE: $199.99 special price. Good until midnight tonight.

Except that you don't know anything about him but what he puts out on the internet, and that is filtered through your prejudices and expectations. OH might not hold back with his opinions, but other than that and a few life stories he's not really an open book on this forum. Yeah, he's negative and nihilistic and callous, but those words don't necessarily define him as a complete person. I took my good sweet time before deciding that you were in fact a super nerd with a working class Boston front to make you seem less dorky than you really are. But that's still an internet assessment that might be completely off base.

Chula Vista · 06-15-2017, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Except that you don't know anything about him but what he puts out on the internet.

.

djchameleon · 06-15-2017, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

Are we who we really are or who we want to be on the Internet

Some people are a mixture of both but all of us on somewhere on the spectrum between the two.

Trollheart · 06-15-2017, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucem Ferre

I've never had a stray human try to bite me. They usually ask for money.

Edit: "But dogs are adorable!" So are raver girls and they are also good at giving head. Dogs won't get me drugs.

You need to get a better dog.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mord

Until I was 37, I just walked around an unfeeling psychopath. When I woke up to my new life, I started to understand a lot of things I'd been deaf and blind to before. One of those things was death.

Why? Was he in your way and wouldn't move?

Quote:

Originally Posted by djchameleon

It is a common opinion that people hold though. People will quickly pull over their car to help a wounded dog on the side of the road than they would a person. A majority of people value animals lives above human lives. As much as I like animals I would still help a random human over an animal.

Even Trump?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

As much as life sucks and I'm a maladjusted cluster**** the thought of ceasing to exist and losing knowledge of everything I've seen and felt just feels like the most unfair cosmic joke ever. Last night I was thinking about how it's kind of ****ed that I'm forgetting much of my high school life. High school was basically one minor trauma after another that I despised, but it was also an important part of my life, and I kind of mourn for that deranged kid who was sure everything would get better one day. He's dying and many of his experiences and feelings are going to be lost to me forever, and considering just how much he went through during those years it just doesn't seem fair.

And what about the future? I'll probably never know if the human race reaches past our solar system, or if we ever have a unified world government, or if Batman ever marries Catwoman. There's just so much cool **** to know at any given time that the thought of missing out on an infinite stretch of time after I die is galling. What right do you people have to do things if I'm not around to see it?

Don't worry Batty: don't you know we're all figments of your deranged imagination? When you die, we cease to exist. Comforting, isn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

When you get older and you start to wear down I think most people get more comfortable with it. A little different for everyone I guess. It sounds like you have a really strong survival instinct. Over time it should start to feel more right.

Do you mean an older person gets a more "well what can you do, all gotta die some time" view, or that people expect older people to die more than they would a younger person: "she's what, eighty now? Had a good run" etc.?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I guess I'm just a narcissist. Or having never had a friend or family member I was at all close to die makes death into more of an idea than a reality. But most of my thoughts of my own death are pretty self-involved.

You're right here. Once you lose someone close (don't wish it on you, man, but it will happen) your whole perspective changes through 180 degrees. Believe me. It gets very real.

OccultHawk · 06-15-2017, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

You're jaded beyond belief. What the **** is your life deal? How did you get to this place? Again what the **** is your life deal? You seem to have zero empathy. Zero emotional attachment. Zero consideration for other's opinions and emotions. You are straight out the coldest human being I've ever met.

A rock has more empathy than you. Prick is too nice a word dude.

Christ you even doctored my post to make it seem more vicious. I actually said a "little" narcissistic. Are you having like a male menopause type of thing? Plus, we haven't "met" but there's plenty people colder than me. I don't get weepy very often, I expect everything living to die, but I don't **** people over to get ahead either. I'm not nearly as cold as the people who wrecked your business, for example. I'm just live and let live. Like if there's a car crash and the person died, I don't care. I'm not upset about it even if I see their body. What can I do? But if someone is in a jam like they need a jump or an old dude is lost and can't understand his GPS I'll even be like follow me even if it's out of my way. I just don't get all emo about ****. You're blowing this out of proportion. I'm the kind of person who hates getting sympathy cards at work. I hate being asked to sign that ****, too. What ****ing good does it do?

Different strokes, dude.

Trollheart · 06-15-2017, 02:11 PM

Since I see we're including talking about the death of pets here, let me give you my story. Hey! Where are you all going? Hell, I'm gonna relate it anyway.

Bruce was the first real experience I had with the death of a pet. Bruce was our big golden retriever/labrador mongrel, and he suffered from epilepsy. We helped him through many a fit, but at one point I got a call in work from my mam, telling me she had had to have Bruce put to sleep. I just dropped the phone and made it to the toilets as the tears came. One of the guys, sent in after me to see what was wrong, asked was I ok and I told him. The audible contempt in his voice when he realised I was crying over a pet really angered me: it was like he was saying “Oh I thought it was something important.” He never had a pet, he could never know what I was feeling.

Next up was Bruce's replacement, Teddy, a big black mastiff/pitbull mongrel with a terrific personality, but eventually he got old and began to lose control of his bodily functions. My brother and I went to do the deed, but I couldn't stay; he did, as the vet eased poor Teddy out of this world.

After this, I had nowhere to run. My mam was dead, brother was married and moved out, and when I got a call in work on Christmas Eve of, I think, 2000, maybe 2001, to say Bonnie, one of our cats, was making an awful noise and seemed in pain I had to ask one of the guys to give me a lift home. He very helpfully stayed, waited while I lifted Bonnie into her cat carrier (she was so limp I basically scooped her in, mewling pathetically – she may as well have been a towel) and brought me down to the vet, where I learned that Bonnie's habit of running away every time I went to dose the three of the cats for fleas had caught up with her: basically, the fleas had sucked her dry of blood. She had to be put down, she was in such pain. We had the worst Christmas ever.

That left two of my original cats. Spooky was next. She was basically my cat, and when we got the three kittens as replacements for Bonnie (only intended to get one originally, that became two and then three in the end) she did not take to them, bullying them and hissing at them and chasing them, and I said to her “When they grow up they're going to remember this.” And they did. She was a delicate cat, and for the last six months of her life lived on her nerves. She used to wait outside my room till I came home from work then claw to get in, to get away from the kittens. We tried keeping her in a special cage, at the vet's suggestion, for a few months but it was clear she had no kind of life. The night I had to take her down to the vet to be put down was one of the hardest of my life, and I don't think I ever cried as much as I dismantled that cage that night on my return from the vet, putting it out in the back garden for disposal as soon as possible.

Debbie was the last, so far. She had gone basically blind. It's a horrible thing, watching their trusting little face looking up at you and hearing their little heart slow, then they go cold and they're gone. I think it's the trust, the “you're not going to hurt me are you? You love me. I'm safe with you, aren't I?” that hits the hardest. You feel like you're betraying them, but when they're in pain what else can you do? You can't force them to remain alive in pain just because you're too much of a wuss to man up and do what needs to be done, end their suffering.

Nobody will understand this unless they have a pet. It's like losing a family member. It really is.

OccultHawk · 06-15-2017, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Do you mean an older person gets a more "well what can you do, all gotta die some time" view, or that people expect older people to die more than they would a younger person: "she's what, eighty now? Had a good run" etc.?

I'm saying you get ****ing tired man. It doesn't mean you want to blow your brains out it just means you start thinking this book has gone on long enough. I don't really need another chapter. Even novelty loses its novelty. It seems like it would get scarier and scarier as it inevitably approaches but that fear is softened by exhaustion and resignation.

Trollheart · 06-15-2017, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

I'm saying you get ****ing tired man. It doesn't mean you want to blow your brains out it just means you start thinking this book has gone on long enough. I don't really need another chapter. Even novelty loses its novelty. It seems like it would get scarier and scarier as it inevitably approaches but that fear is softened by exhaustion and resignation.

OK I get it. I wasn't sure. Personally, I'm 54 and want to live to be 154, as long as I have all my faculties. I'm not fixing to die any time soon. Plus, I have more than my own selfish concerns to consider.

OccultHawk · 06-15-2017, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Ya, that's the frosting version of a person. It's the cake version that really counts.

I mean, I've traded blows with a ton of you folks through the years, but this guy is taking it to a really different level.

SOULS FOR SALE: $199.99 special price. Good until midnight tonight.

Has it ever occurred to you that you're so self-righteous you can't even smell your own ****?

06-15-2017, 02:11 PM	#57 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,970	Since I see we're including talking about the death of pets here, let me give you my story. Hey! Where are you all going? Hell, I'm gonna relate it anyway. Bruce was the first real experience I had with the death of a pet. Bruce was our big golden retriever/labrador mongrel, and he suffered from epilepsy. We helped him through many a fit, but at one point I got a call in work from my mam, telling me she had had to have Bruce put to sleep. I just dropped the phone and made it to the toilets as the tears came. One of the guys, sent in after me to see what was wrong, asked was I ok and I told him. The audible contempt in his voice when he realised I was crying over a pet really angered me: it was like he was saying “Oh I thought it was something important.” He never had a pet, he could never know what I was feeling. Next up was Bruce's replacement, Teddy, a big black mastiff/pitbull mongrel with a terrific personality, but eventually he got old and began to lose control of his bodily functions. My brother and I went to do the deed, but I couldn't stay; he did, as the vet eased poor Teddy out of this world. After this, I had nowhere to run. My mam was dead, brother was married and moved out, and when I got a call in work on Christmas Eve of, I think, 2000, maybe 2001, to say Bonnie, one of our cats, was making an awful noise and seemed in pain I had to ask one of the guys to give me a lift home. He very helpfully stayed, waited while I lifted Bonnie into her cat carrier (she was so limp I basically scooped her in, mewling pathetically – she may as well have been a towel) and brought me down to the vet, where I learned that Bonnie's habit of running away every time I went to dose the three of the cats for fleas had caught up with her: basically, the fleas had sucked her dry of blood. She had to be put down, she was in such pain. We had the worst Christmas ever. That left two of my original cats. Spooky was next. She was basically my cat, and when we got the three kittens as replacements for Bonnie (only intended to get one originally, that became two and then three in the end) she did not take to them, bullying them and hissing at them and chasing them, and I said to her “When they grow up they're going to remember this.” And they did. She was a delicate cat, and for the last six months of her life lived on her nerves. She used to wait outside my room till I came home from work then claw to get in, to get away from the kittens. We tried keeping her in a special cage, at the vet's suggestion, for a few months but it was clear she had no kind of life. The night I had to take her down to the vet to be put down was one of the hardest of my life, and I don't think I ever cried as much as I dismantled that cage that night on my return from the vet, putting it out in the back garden for disposal as soon as possible. Debbie was the last, so far. She had gone basically blind. It's a horrible thing, watching their trusting little face looking up at you and hearing their little heart slow, then they go cold and they're gone. I think it's the trust, the “you're not going to hurt me are you? You love me. I'm safe with you, aren't I?” that hits the hardest. You feel like you're betraying them, but when they're in pain what else can you do? You can't force them to remain alive in pain just because you're too much of a wuss to man up and do what needs to be done, end their suffering. Nobody will understand this unless they have a pet. It's like losing a family member. It really is. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018