Our Ways To Die…
If you got a choice how would you choose to die? [please be as detailed as possible]
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What a difficult question! Dying is what we all try to avoid thinking about. I think it's easier to list all the many ways in which we would NOT like to die, most of them, I'm sure, involving intense or long-drawn-out pain. I suppose I would rather die either very quickly (and painlessly) or after an illness which gave me plenty of time to sort out my affairs and say goodbye. Hmm. The second of those suddenly seems best to me, because there is always something unsaid, isn't there? The strange thing is that if people thought about this more often, maybe we would all deal with the things normally left undone and unsaid, just in case.
Can't believe I'm actually arguing with the Great Big Flaming Purple One. But here goes...
I believe that actually we think of death as something remote, or something that happens to other people, not us. If I imagine my own death, it tends to be about 40 years in the future, making it an abstract concept - fascinating but unreal. The subject itself is extremely interesting - have you read "The Art Of Dying" by Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick?
As for my own, personal death, I freely admit to being frightened of a painful, long-drawn-out process, having watched close relatives go through just that.
I think your final act will always have meaning to those who love you and who will be left when you are gone. Most people are remembered for the things they do while alive, unless they die during some heroic act, or a dastardly one. It is easier for the young to imagine a death covered in glory, when life seems so mundane.
Make your life have meaning, then your death will also have meaning as a consequence! I challenge you to change the world by the way you live, then however you die, the meaning in your life will not end but continue after you have gone.
It is my opinion that death by natural causes brings about a great deal of sorrow and suffering for those parties who care (or "love") the deceased. I understand (for I have lost people who were close to me) that it is a sad occasion and that the memory of that person lives on in each person who knew them. However, once those people are gone no clear memory of that person will remain, just hand-me-down images and random phrases. It seems a shame that after leading your life, something that is so unique and that you will never experience again, will be forgotten within a generation. We each have one life to live, and unless we do something grandiose or glorious, that one unique conversion of atoms that will never happen again will be forgotten - eventually only remembered by the strands of deoxyribonucleic acid that have been passed down biologically throughout one's successor generations. Even this is not a certain means of being an influence through time, this assumes that you are not only capable of producing biological offspring of your own but also are fortunate enough to live long enough to do so and that all of your successor generations are also fortunate enough.
Perhaps I am simply a youthful individual who finds it all too easy to imagine a death covered in glory because life, now, seems so mundane. However I prefer to think of my views as a desire to achieve either the goal of eliminating the Vast Machine or die in the process in such a manner that it galvanizes the masses to surge forth to our cause and eliminate the Vast Machine. Either way I desire to either live or die in a capacity that fulfills my obligation as a member of We Speak for Freedom.
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Well said, Delta. It's Time To Fight the Vast Machine! Just remember you can do more for the cause if you are around to do it. Consider Aung San Suu Kiy, who manages to change the world by simply being. What a brilliant, intellectual, non-combative example she is: living her life on a knife edge, holding onto her principles, risking death but still alive to be a thorn in the Burmese government's side and constantly remind us of its iniquities. I know you will be no less firm in your defence of freedom.
As for being forgotten - great minds are not forgotten. Their words reverberate down the years. Omar Khayyam wrote: "The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." and is still remembered for it a thousand years later.
I think it would be better to make your life have meaning than your death have one, but that's just me. Look at Nelson Mandela and Ghandi; they'll always be remembered for how many lives they changed during their own lives.
As for how I would like to die, I'm not sure. Personally, when I was younger, I nearly drowned. I remember it being possibly one of the most peaceful experiences of my life. I guess I wouldn't mind drowning, but dying in your sleep would possibly be nice as well, but I don't think I would want that (see below). I wouldn't mind having sacrifice myself for something meaningful either. I guess I don't care how much my death means to someone, as long as when I do die, I'm at a point in my life where I have a positive outlook on how I've lived my life, however short or long it has been. So that I can take a second or two before my final breath, to look back and feel truly happy. I guess the way I'd want to die or how much meaning it has, isn't so much what I care about, just that my final moment alive is a truly and well-deserved happy one.
Death, such a topic! As a child i was so affraid of dying. Now as i look back i wonder what all the fear was for.
I think that if i had the option of choosing in which manner to escape this world i would have to pick to go out strong. to still be able to voice my opinion and hold true to myself. The physical means do not matter so much to me, but to still have my mind and be able to make known what i believe in and where i stand as a human is all i think i can ever wish for. :)
I want to die facing my killer (for I know that I will be killed). I will have a smile on my face, for he (or she) doesn't know that I have set a clever trap that will spring and kill him the same time he kills me. Exactly what that trap will be, I don't know. I considered implanting a bomb in my body that would go off if my heart stopped beating, but since your heart stops for an instant when you sneeze, that would be a bad idea.
Still, it'd be funny to be walking down a street, then sneeze and randomly explode. The amusement would be short-lived, but well worth it.
I love how you think, I have a wonderful mental image of people combusting into little fleshy chunks as they sneeze! ;D
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I had a pretty serious answer ready until this I read this one:
I considered implanting a bomb in my body that would go off if my heart stopped beating, but since your heart stops for an instant when you sneeze, that would be a bad idea.
Still, it'd be funny to be walking down a street, then sneeze and randomly explode. The amusement would be short-lived, but well worth it.
You're goofy Deyrdeyth, haha, but I fully agree, no matter how morbid the actuality of it is.
Let's see. Basically my answer adjusted the more I thought about this. I think when it's all said and done, I would prefer to die via drowning, maybe a poorly shot bullet, perhaps a fractured limb, or something along those horrible lines, mainly because I want to die facing a fear. I'm not very accident prone, not by any stretch of the word, so attempting to deal with an overwhelming fear and somewhat accomplishing this is plenty enough for me.
Honestly up until this point in time, I've always wanted to live out my days and die in some mountain retreat away from the control of man, but the more I'm thinking about it, the less I truly want this. Maybe a fight to the death would be another way.
Who am I kidding though, with the way things are going it will either be a deadly virus from another country, or a plane crash. Either way, I'm expecting the worst.
I must refute your statement that "Dying is what we all try to avoid thinking about." Movies, TV shows, and books are mostly all filled with images of people dying - it is a point of fascination in all forms of modern entertainment. There is something about death, something that makes us want to question it and learn to understand what it is and, most importantly, what it brings. Does it bring about a finite end where we cease to exist or is there life beyond death? From the moment each one of us is born it has been sealed that we shall die, so why is contemplating death such a taboo?
I do not worry about the pain death brings, whether there is none or whether I am overwhelmed with pain, I want my death - my final act - to have meaning. If I must do something that is so final, without reversal, I wish it to have meaning. I would rather die a slow and painful death at a "younger" age for something I believe in than die a quite and painless death in my old age. Without meaning the final act of death is a waste. Who cares how painful death will be? You will only have to live through it once…
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