To kick the bucket, to bite the dust, to go over the Big Ridge, to join the great majority...
- Thread starter Faenoriel
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Faenoriel
Tol Eressea
"The great majority" indeed have died, and we living are the tiny minority. What goes on in people's mind when they die always interests me, and at the same time I'm wondering how I'll deal with my own death when it comes. My favorite war novelist Väinö Linna, who himself was a WW2 vet, wrote that every man died like they had lived. Some were crying and begging hysterically, others crawled behind a stone and waited silently.
I don't see this as a bad subject, or something that should be avoided. Remembering death and it's inevitable part of our existence and understanding of ourselves is only healthy. It's the opposite: the way we as a culture have been alienated from death is alarming. So perhaps what I'm trying to do (with tongue in cheek) is to nudge "memento mori".
Oh and thanks for adding "freeze"!
I don't see this as a bad subject, or something that should be avoided. Remembering death and it's inevitable part of our existence and understanding of ourselves is only healthy. It's the opposite: the way we as a culture have been alienated from death is alarming. So perhaps what I'm trying to do (with tongue in cheek) is to nudge "memento mori".
Oh and thanks for adding "freeze"!
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Faenoriel
Tol Eressea
I'll starve. Long, but I'm really scared of all the other options. Save freezing. That's a pretty nice thing, as you'll go out quickly and in the end you stop feeling anything. But I'll still starve. Maybe because if I do so, post-humously my books and paintings will become world famous and I'll go down in history as a martyr of arts.
Rosie-with-the-ribbons
Tol Eressea
all the others I will leave to the more adventurous folks.
Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
and both were very peaceful, good deaths. So I don't think much of your options. But I picked "freeze" because that sounded by far the least painful of your choices.
I've been fascinated by death since I was a child, but seeing how peacefully my family members went has been an encouraging experience. They were 80 and 96, respectively. l think living a long, good life adds a huge element of peace to the end.
I'm noticing one option you didn't mention was thirst. And that interests me because essentially that's how my family members died. Both got to the point where they couldn't swallow, as a natural consequence of their respective diseases. Both of them said they had no pain, and the end came peacefully for both of them. My mom carried a water bottle with her most of her adult life. She never wanted to be without water. So that added a poignancy to her end.
As others have said in this thread, I hope your interest is academic at this point (are you writing a novel, maybe?) In 1992, when I was going through the throes of depression, I looked out in the back yard one Christmas Eve as the snow was falling, and I had an overwhelming urge to lie down in the snow and let it cover me up. But in the years to follow, I've been *so* glad I didn't do it.
I've been fascinated by death since I was a child, but seeing how peacefully my family members went has been an encouraging experience. They were 80 and 96, respectively. l think living a long, good life adds a huge element of peace to the end.
I'm noticing one option you didn't mention was thirst. And that interests me because essentially that's how my family members died. Both got to the point where they couldn't swallow, as a natural consequence of their respective diseases. Both of them said they had no pain, and the end came peacefully for both of them. My mom carried a water bottle with her most of her adult life. She never wanted to be without water. So that added a poignancy to her end.
As others have said in this thread, I hope your interest is academic at this point (are you writing a novel, maybe?) In 1992, when I was going through the throes of depression, I looked out in the back yard one Christmas Eve as the snow was falling, and I had an overwhelming urge to lie down in the snow and let it cover me up. But in the years to follow, I've been *so* glad I didn't do it.
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Alassëa Eruvande
Valinor
None of those options listed appeal to me in any way. I'll probably die of heart problems, most likely a heart arrhythmia, and fall down dead.
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Mad Hatter of Middle-Earth
Lorien
Edit: As an old man warm in his bed [
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Faenoriel
Tol Eressea
See, of course everyone wants to get an easy death. So do I. But the point of this poll isn't to have everyone say the obvious, but to stir some thoughts.
And indeed it already has. People seem to consider the subject as something worrying, as a normal person shouldn't be interested in death and suffering around it. That's very close to my general assumption of our Western culture's alienation from life and death. Like death would be something that needs to be kicked away and forgotten.
And indeed it already has. People seem to consider the subject as something worrying, as a normal person shouldn't be interested in death and suffering around it. That's very close to my general assumption of our Western culture's alienation from life and death. Like death would be something that needs to be kicked away and forgotten.
Rosie-with-the-ribbons
Tol Eressea
I really don't feel death should be not-mentioned or whatever. I mean, it is the one thing we are all sure of that will happen. So death in it self I don't mind.
But the options you are giving are not the way I hope to leave this world or hope for anybody else to have to go like that. I know a lot of people will die like that (especially and unfortunately starvation), but I assume most people will want to go a little bit more peaceful (and less painful). So if I have to pick, a sudden stroke without having pain, just a snap of the finger and I'm gone, that would be the best way (I hope).
But the options you are giving are not the way I hope to leave this world or hope for anybody else to have to go like that. I know a lot of people will die like that (especially and unfortunately starvation), but I assume most people will want to go a little bit more peaceful (and less painful). So if I have to pick, a sudden stroke without having pain, just a snap of the finger and I'm gone, that would be the best way (I hope).
Oiotári
Tol Eressea
If I had to have a unhappy (ie: don't get to live a long life and/or die peacefully) death I think I'd like to fall, so I figured that'd be similar to being crushed. That way I get to fall for a ways (since I'm dying anyways, might as well enjoy the last few seconds) and then die near-instantaneously. Now if I didn't fall far enough and ended up dying of blood-loss/starvation/thirst that would be an entirely different story
In other news, I'm surprised at how many people seem reluctant to choose from the options given (okay, so I didn't quite do that either, but it was the same theme at least). It seems natural to me to ponder about death.
In other news, I'm surprised at how many people seem reluctant to choose from the options given (okay, so I didn't quite do that either, but it was the same theme at least). It seems natural to me to ponder about death.
Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
I had two students who committed suicide, and one of the things they taught us in the workshops afterward was that when people start asking the kind of question you're asking, to probe a bit and see if they're casting about for a method.
I do agree that our culture tends to sweep death under the rug, but I try not to do that. When my husband and I were sitting with my father-in-law's body, the mortuary guys came in, and they asked us if we wanted to step out while they put him in a body bag, as that might upset us. We said, "No, why would that upset us? It used to be the families who prepared the body. The least we can do is be here." And I saw my mother's eyes glaze over and her body harden as she lay in the bed that used to be mine when I was a child. I didn't shy away from that.
And I've put my hand into more boxes of ashes than I can number right now, as we scattered ashes in our favorite mountain river. It feels kind of like an invasion of privacy, and is kind of gritty and greasy, but it makes death seem real.
I don't think I'm afraid of death anymore, but of course I'm afraid of pain. Who wouldn't be? That's a perfectly natural and logical response. I'm a little offended that you think our reluctance to choose some kind of torture is a cultural denial of death.
I do agree that our culture tends to sweep death under the rug, but I try not to do that. When my husband and I were sitting with my father-in-law's body, the mortuary guys came in, and they asked us if we wanted to step out while they put him in a body bag, as that might upset us. We said, "No, why would that upset us? It used to be the families who prepared the body. The least we can do is be here." And I saw my mother's eyes glaze over and her body harden as she lay in the bed that used to be mine when I was a child. I didn't shy away from that.
And I've put my hand into more boxes of ashes than I can number right now, as we scattered ashes in our favorite mountain river. It feels kind of like an invasion of privacy, and is kind of gritty and greasy, but it makes death seem real.
I don't think I'm afraid of death anymore, but of course I'm afraid of pain. Who wouldn't be? That's a perfectly natural and logical response. I'm a little offended that you think our reluctance to choose some kind of torture is a cultural denial of death.
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GlowWorm
Bree
Impalement;
cause the whole idea of being impaled has always been something I've pondered on as a way of dying. I imagine it would be slightly painful at first then you would go all numb...
...Then WHAM you wake up in a hospital and wonder why you are there.
But seriously, I should like to be impaled. In the stomach if I can manage it.
cause the whole idea of being impaled has always been something I've pondered on as a way of dying. I imagine it would be slightly painful at first then you would go all numb...
...Then WHAM you wake up in a hospital and wonder why you are there.
But seriously, I should like to be impaled. In the stomach if I can manage it.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
At age 96 he had a sudden onset of diabetes, which he decided not to treat. He gathered his family about him and we had a great party in his apartment, with live music and little kids, saying goodbye. He said there was no pain. The next night, as I held his hand, he slipped into a coma, and died the following day.