Surving (Past) New Years

[Mary Terry]

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Check this historic timeline of humans, as well as of the species that preceded us. What is the passage of one year to another in the grand scheme of time? Practically nothing, it’s insignificant. It’s like celebrating the appearance of a new second. Look for how long the other species before our own lived on Earth. We, as a species, have a lot of thousands or even millions of years ahead to exist.

There’s also people who make a timeline of the future. The end of the world is just one in millions of possibilities, check some of the others here: Future Timeline | Technology | Singularity | 2020 | 2050 | 2100 | 2150 | 2200 | 21st century | 22nd century | 23rd century | Humanity | Predictions | Events

But we will never know for sure what will happen in the future, and we have to learn to live with the uncertainty.

In the other hand, we have the ability to believe in whatever we want. I believe that if this world comes to an end, it will continue living somewhere else in the universe. I also believe that our souls are eternal.

My beliefs give me peace of mine. If you want peace of mind, I suggest that you find out in what you believe.

I love seeing Fred Flintstone on the chart! Yappa dappa do!

 

[Sabrina]

@Riley ,

But the fact remains that one day your life will end, and that is something worthy of consideration.

The world will end for us someday, when we die. Accepting our own mortality is part of maturing emotionally.

I went to a small chapel a few days ago with my son, and there were note slips to write a few sentences about something that we wanted to ask God. I asked him what he wanted to write (he’s seven, almost eight) and he told me, very serious: “that I live forever”. I wrote it down and I told him that indeed, our souls will live forever (I’ve told him in the past that our bodies will die).

I think these issues that have to do with our own mortality, or the world’s mortality, might be recurrent themes for people wired to think as we do. It might be that we are super aware of our existence (or the world’s, or the universe’s) and that can be a double edge sword. It can make us become philosophers, astronomers, environmental activists, science fiction writers, have religion careers, etc, or it can make us worry too much about it, pointlessly.

I know it because I’ve been there before, from obsessing about religious profecies, to WWIII, to humanity destroying the Earth with a way of life that we can’t support any longer. As everything, moderation is the key (tough, I know). It’s ok to think about these things, as long as they don’t become a problem and affect negatively our life. My positive outlet for this kind of thinking is to read dystopian fiction.

I agree with @pjcnet , we have to filter the information that arrives to us. In the same way that certain noises can affect us more than NTs, certain bad news can affect us more also.

I don’t watch tv news anymore, but I do read them. I like knowing about what’s happening in the world, but I don’t need the overwhelming entertaining show they put in tv news outlets.

We have to take care of what gets inside our mind, in the same way that we care about what we eat, what we wear, what we hear, or what we touch. Just as an innocent tag in a shirt might not have any negative effect in anybody around, except me, the awareness of my own mortality, or the world’s, has a bigger effect in ‘me’ (or you @Riley , or anyone in this forum) than in other people.

 

[Riley]

I actually know I'm going to die some day. Again: I'm just not ready.

 

[Judge]

I actually know I'm going to die some day. Again: I'm just not ready.

For my own perspective, when you're an immortal soul, the worst possible things that can happen to you here don't really matter. As for how, when and why...those concerns are predetermined and not within your mortal ability to control.

They just become distant memories when you move on, and return to your primary existence and continually evolve by your own choice. It's a process which reflects why such bad things can happen to good people. Because in the cosmic sense it doesn't matter. Pain and strife are not part of our primary plane of existence.

That's something that only happens here. Where at some point your immortal soul will look back on this with amusement, because in the big picture you're worried about things that don't matter and are never permanent other than as a distant memory of a life you long since moved on from.

There is no "death". Only transition from one plane of existence to another. You want proof? That would render the entire "lesson" pointless, now wouldn't it? Like being given all the answers to a test.

 

[Riley]

I never understand how other people do it. How they act so calm and know everything's going to be alright. Meanwhile, I'm cowering in a corner. Haunted by visions of loved ones young and old, as well as pets, dying. Leaving me alone before I die.

 

[Judge]

I never understand how other people do it. How they act so calm and know everything's going to be alright. Meanwhile, I'm cowering in a corner. Haunted by visions of loved ones young and old, as well as pets, dying. Leaving me alone before I die.

If you work to "live in the moment", you may eventually discover that it doesn't involve any sense of holocaust. Just your normal day-to-life, especially if you work to keep out such thoughts and just deal with life rather than the potential of death.

Even for those in the midst of real war and destruction or a cold war, life goes on with daily routines.

 

[Riley]

I should stop taking 80's movies as gospel on the subject. Constant negativity, even with the slightest positivity, isn't good. Right?

Ironically, it was a TV show that briefly convinced me that, despite all my faults and incidents, I'd join my loved ones in a Better Place. Then I smacked myself for "stupidity."

 

[Judge]

I should stop taking 80's movies as gospel on the subject. Constant negativity, even with the slightest positivity, isn't good. Right?

The main purpose of film and television is primarily to entertain- not necessarily to enlighten.

Ironically, it was a TV show that briefly convinced me that, despite all my faults and incidents, I'd join my loved ones in a Better Place. Then I smacked myself for "stupidity."

Such thoughts are anyone's guess. I mean, what if most or all religions could be fundamentally wrong about a great many things? Personally I can only tell you that I believe our cosmic existence is considerably more kind and forgiving than so many religions depict. Why should they have a monopoly on the truth ?

Does this mean I'm going to hell? What if there is a God, but no hell?

Though at times film can provide some interesting things to ponder. Perhaps Keyser Sose (The Usual Suspects) is just a modern version of Satan.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

If you're 16, then you've woken up at least 5,840 times and at least 15 times on Jan. 1. What makes next Monday any different from all those other times?

 

[Riley]

If you're 16, then you've woken up at least 5,840 times and at least 15 times on Jan. 1. What makes next Monday any different from all those other times?

I dunno. The Clock I mentioned. I wasn't alive for the Cold War. And, ya know, 80's movies convinced me my mother and others are stupid because they say the same things that characters who would die said.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

Let's all meet here on Jan. 1 to find out whether the world ended. Deal?

 

[Riley]

Heh. Yeah.

 

[Judge]

I dunno. The Clock I mentioned. I wasn't alive for the Cold War. And, ya know, 80's movies convinced me my mother and others are stupid because they say the same things that characters who would die said.

Actually you're in a Cold War right now. Just one with a more complex theme.

Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin against America and Donald Trump versus the world. And whatever Mother Nature continues to dish out.

It's enough to make a lot of heads spin.

 

[Riley]

@Judge, I love you, but your thought process confuses and scares me. I just think I' living in my own personal bubble of Cold War fear while everyone else is rightfully (or stupidly) unconcerned.

 

[Judge]

@Judge, I love you, but your thought process confuses and scares me. I just think I' living in my own personal bubble of Cold War fear while everyone else is rightfully (or stupidly) unconcerned.

The best thing to keep in mind isn't necessarily what is happening, but that media tries to make the most of it. Or more to the point, the worst of it.

Yet in the meantime despite all that is happening, life goes on. Let that be your "compass".

 

[tree]

80's movies convinced me my mother and others are stupid because they say the same things that characters who would die said.

You get really excited over fiction, I have noticed.

 

[Riley]

Yeah...I heard it was an Aspie thing.

 

[Crossbreed]

If you work to "live in the moment", you may eventually discover that it doesn't involve any sense of holocaust. Just your normal day-to-life, especially if you work to keep out such thoughts and just deal with life rather than the potential of death.

Even for those in the midst of real war and destruction or a cold war, life goes on with daily routines.

That advice sounds like,

"Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."

That is a conflation of Ecclesiastes 8:15 & Isaiah 22:13

 

[Judge]

That advice sounds like,

"Let us eat, drink (and be merry) for tomorrow we die."

There are choices. You can eat, drink and be merry.

Or you could just go about what you'd normally do regardless of what's happening that is beyond your control. Just live your normal everyday living circumstances. Where "life goes on".

 

[Crossbreed]

There are choices. You can eat, drink and be merry.

Or you could just go about what you'd normally do regardless of what's happening that is beyond your control.

Or... one could consider the case for fire insurance.