Welcome to Gaia! ::

Have you ever noticed that the same types of people who cannot fathom their own non-existence the same types of people who are usually against abortion?

Non-existence, for some, just means... well... not existing. No big deal, right? Sure, you don't feel pleasure, but you also can't feel pain, why heck you simply aren't there. But to others, the idea strikes against them so much that it brings up their insecurities about ones individuality, psyche, ego, personality, etc. Their own insecurities about non-existing drives them to be against abortion as opposed to being neutral or even supportive of abortion. Thing is, that's just an experienced feeling/emotion/drive, not an idea based on logic.

Have you noticed... that the people who aren't capable of being pregnant can feel very vulnerable about NOT ONLY not-existing, but by not having any personal control over the fate and course of making new life that itself can alter their own existence? For some dudes, this loss of absolute power is very frightening and makes them very vulnerable because the giver of their own life had to be pregnant with THEM.

Thoughts?

Not existing.

To me, it seems like the most ultimate state of peace.
Of rest.

Sometimes when I'm over stressed I think about how if I didn't exist, or what if I could watch over the lives of other people - Kind of like 'The lovely Bones' story.
And it relaxs me.


Then again - maybe I'm just weird.

I know 'the lovely bones part' isn't nonexsistance etc.

See, I really don't have a fear of dieing, though it makes me feeling a 'bit off' knowing that I won't know 'what happens next'.
I'm more scared of growing old.
Having my body age and break down till I can't do what I was able to do, scares the s**t out of me.
I turn 17 in may and honest to god, I'm scared shitless.
I know it's going to be worse the day I'm 19 turning 20 - leaving my teens behind. neutral
Last summer almost killed me.
this summer might be worse. next year is my senior year, my last year of highschool, and even though I want to be independant and in college, I just can never shake the feeling that I should be doing so much more, that I'm going to wake up one day and realize I've wasted my life

Talon, you're describing men who would support abortion in the case of supporting the life of an "illegitimate" child. I was referring to pro-life men who wanted all pregnant women to birth unwanted kids to term.

Yeah, I'm afraid that dying may be painful and generally suck a**. Thinking about death makes me think twice before wanting children- cus i'd be pulling new life into a continuing cycle of reproduction and death. Yet life is lonelier with fewer people. And... we have that biological urge to ensure the survival of the species afterall... damn this is some complicated stuff.

If I can psychically explore what this death stuff is about.... if there is such a thing as an existence beyond the 3-d earth reality we all know of, then maybe that can help me out and maybe help anyone else out who was interested in hearing it. Beyond that, assuming the cessation of consciousness after death is the most realistic explanation people have found.

Trite elegy, you can slow down your biological age by being in good health. eat right and exercise.

your twenties makes you realize that you are aging, yet you are still youth. The worse thing about the twenties is that your most fertile, youthful, healthy, and productive years of your life is rotting away at college, sitting down and reading books for a degree that is probably overpriced and devalued. and the first working years of your life is probably low-wage, menial tasks. Or, being exploited by the military, enter a war, and become dead or crippled for the rest of your life.


Guess what you guys, if you live to be old, you are some lucky bastards. Look at these poor folk over at

http://www.mydeathspace.com/article-list.aspx

It makes me feel very bad for them that these folk died in their teens and twenties. sad It was not uncommon for me to hear of a fellow highschool peer of mine dying... usually it was a car accident. Ya'll better be extra careful on those roads now.

I'm the same. I do not fear death itself but I do fear growing old and my body and mind failing. mad The whole growing up thing really upsets me.

I do not fear non-existance. How can one fear something that one cannot experience?

You know.. we "kind of" go through a "mini death" each time we sleep or take a nap. Aside from the REM-induced dream state, of course.

Do we get scared of sleeping though? We know we will wake up again.

But still, does anyone really *think about* the desire for their consciousness to be fully-operational while the body is shut down?

Do we really care to know and see ourselves snoozing on the bed? How fun it would be to stare at yourself for eight hours, motionless except for the occasional twitching eye, muttering, or slight tossing and turning.

... unless, if consciousness does indeed transcend the body, it surely would have more fun things to do than stare at itself sleeping or rotting 6 feet under. the ground.

Nonexistance doesn't really scare me--what scares me is that there's so much I might leave undone.

I'm a dreamer, always have been. I want to change the world for the better. I want to help people I love, and people I've never met, people who are suffering, and people who just need a pick-me-up. I want to leave future generations better off than I am. I'm not sure how I'll do it. Maybe I'll write, maybe I'll talk. Maybe I'll become an activist or a politician or a scientist. Maybe I'll start one of the charities I've been dreaming up, or work with an existing one.

Whatever I do, I want to know I've made a difference. And the idea that I could just not wake up and have never done anything, well, that's what scares me.

It's frustrating when you point out that if a fetus was aborted, it wouldn't really care because it didn't even know of it's existence, couldn't feel, or think. But the pro-lifers seem to ignore that instead of thinking in the feti's POV.