To think a lot of what we do is just passing time till death?

[crunchymint]

This is going to sound like I am depressed, and I am not. But a lot of what people do is really just filling in our time until we die. Watching TV, MNing, going for walks. All just ways ultimately of using up the hours we have.
I guess this is more an existential question. If you are religious there is an obvious purpose to life. On a biological level the purpose of life is simply survival of the species - individuals don't matter. On an individual non religious level, life doesn't really seem to have any purpose. We are simply filling in our time till death, and on the way if we are decent people, trying to help others avoid too much pain.

Thanks cat. I understand better what you meant.

Thinking that the things we do are just passing time until death doesn't necessarily mean that we think those things (that we do) are pointless or without any meaning.

Another of my personal strange thoughts is: While someone remembers me i still live on somehow. But when the last person who knew me dies, then i have truly gone.

Saw something on TV a while ago about 'the last person who saw Queen Victoria in person has died' and it made me think about my nan. She was 93 when she passed away. My eldest DD remembers her, just, and she will be the last person who does.

Upstartcrow

That made me lol. Thank you for making my time filled until my death, just a little bit funnier!

In terms of remembering people, one of the things I am struck by the past, is that some of the most famous artists of their day, later are totally forgotten about by nearly everyone. Most famous people today will not be remembered in a fairly short space of time.

Ah, cat, I've been waiting to come across a post from you ever since the contemporary art thread.

I think regeneration is precisely the point of life. It is all one big cycle, endlessly repeated, with the raw materials going through infinite reorganisations, like a kaleidoscope. I even (sometimes) feel quite chilled about bad stuff like global warming and all the plastic in the ocean, etc etc, because I do believe that the planet and indeed the universe and whatever lies beyond (not an astronomer!) is completely capable of reconfiguring as needed for a satisfactory outcome. I am happy to be a small cog in this ever-variable perpetual-motion machine, and for parts of me to eventually become parts of other cogs, and so on and so on.

This is the basic truth of life that gives rise to religious ways of thinking about things - reincarnation, resurrection, transubstantiation, etc etc.

The best way to fill the time between birth and death is to do what you can to make a high quality recyclable of yourself.

And gardening, the most optimistic of all the activities.

But how would they know they were in reference to humans if the planet/all human memory has been obliterated?

Unless there's a also a photo of Elon musk in the glove box to demonstrate what an Elon Musk was

There is no meaning to life unless you create one. No one is forced to sit around passing time by MNing! Go out and have experiences and be grateful for the series of coincidences which brought our amazing world and your life into being. There's no good but that doesn't mean we shouldn't love life.

Laiste Lots of cultures have a very strong element of ancestor worship, specifically naming and recalling the dead, for precisely that reason.

Walter Pater (C19 writer) has a lovely bit in 'Marius the Epicurean' - which is a fictionalised account of the encounter between pagan and Christian religion and their core values - in which the pagan practice of ancestor remembrance breaks down, and the ghosts of the dead ancestors are left shivering and alone and forgotten in an empty house, wandering from room to room, in search of the living who will warmly connect with them (and bring them the sustenance of a kind of contact with life) through memorialisation.

God not good!

Not the dummy but three humans presumably. Elon Musk, coz he sent it into orbit, David Bowie because Starman the mannequin is named in his honour and Douglas Adams due to the ‘Don’t Panic’ Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy homage resting on the dashboard.

It's orbit will eventually degrade - although shining bright now, it will not escape gravity's cruel, essential grasp for too long and will begin a slow, inexorable spiral, eventually reduced to nothing by force and time.

sigh

Crunchy, this has nothing to do It your topic, but you are using ‘imbibe’ on this thread when I think you mean ‘imbue’.

But how would they know they were in reference to humans if the planet/all human memory has been obliterated?

How indeed?? They might thing it's like a barcode or something.

I really don't feel that way, but then I have just had all clear cancer diagnosis, so I am in a very different place at the moment anyway.

My life feels truthfully like a god given gift.

There is no such thing as a dull day, even the dullest is precious.
Kissing your children, reading them stories, seeing the sunshine, the crappy TV. It could all be taken away. It is not there forever.

If you are simply 'filling the time' until you die my advice would be to fill it with something you can be proud of, joyous and try to live better. The dread of knowing it could end, might well end much sooner than you think focuses the mind to realise that we must make our mark now, make a difference now. Imagine your funeral what would they say....then think what you would like the world to say, what do you want to be remembered for......and start there.

I feel almost annoyed with you in a friendly way for being so casual, don't be casual this is it, it is all you have.

CrunchyMint - it is from the album Dark Side of the Moon - if you dont know it, you are missing out big time!

MrsLupo I actually feel the same about global warming. I think save the earth, really means save the humans. Earth will be fine and will carry on. There have been three nearly mass extinctions of life in the lifetime of the earth, it ultimately hasn't mattered.

Hestershaw Having amazing experiences is good, and I have had some. But my point is that ultimately they are just another way of passing time till we die.

My DB passed away last year aged 34 from cancer and it has really made me reflect a lot more (than I usually do!) on the transcience of life, nature, everything really. I remember studying an 18th century painting during my art history degree by some Dutch artist (all of the them seemed obsessed with the vanities of life) and it was a really clever skull illusion with two girls in the place of the skull's eyes surrounded by the pointless 'vanities' of life, none of which will really matter. I'll see if I can find the artist/painting as it has now reminded me of it, and I'm annoyed I can't remember what it is!

I agree, everything is transient, fleeting etc and my dear departed grandma used to say things like 'I can sleep when I'm dead' which always amused me - now I know she meant to make the most of the hours you are awake as it'll be a long time we're asleep. I guess my DB's death and my grandma's reflections always heightened my sense of mortality, making the most of what we have, and enjoying the here and now.

I know my DB was pretty much (as far as I could tell) in denial about his death, possibly as a result of being young and feeling invincible I guess. But I also take comfort from the fact that he seemed to just carry on, doing what he pleased in a kind of selfish way, as he had always done. My DF said in his eulogy that my DB lived exactly how he wanted to, almost as though he knew his time on this planet was very short. I'm not advocating doing whatever you like and to hell with the consequences, but I like the attitude of living life to fullest you possibly can and enjoying the amazing gift we have been given.

Good post, OP!

I should add, Pater also suggests that Christianity, in breaking with this memorialisation of the dead - and its idea of persistence beyond death, which is a kind of refusal of the belief in the actuality of death and finitude - permits a softer, more empathetic encounter with death and (because of that) ushers in a greater valuing of life, and a more tender attitude towards it.

Obviously, we live in times where we interpret Christianity's notion of an after-life and resurrection as a similar wish -fulfilling project and refusal to accept the fact of finitude. But Pater is interesting in that he suggests Christianity is an invention that permits a new attitude to life and death and that is doesn't necessarily have to be a death-denying project.

(He also suggests a whole lot more - but I think I'd rather leave that for other people to explore, rather than being didactic.)

and thanks to Roger Waters for the lyrics of course (quick copy and paste - please don't sue me Mr waters!!)

Fleetwodd You are right - I am perhaps subconciously thinking of imbibing wine in my low key hedonistic state

RaininSummer My DP loves that album but I have never listened to it. Maybe I should.

In some end of the world dramas they have some people living a totally hedonistic lifestyle - getting drunk and partying. That seems a sane response, and a lower key version of that seemed to happen during the second world war. Lots of young women going out to dances nearly every night and having sex before marriage. Because they focused on the now, rather than the future.

What a great thread!

I think about this a lot. What really gets to me is how some try their best to spoil whatever short time we have here. I can't stand for example how modern advertising focuses on 'happiness', 'living life to the full', obviously only being possible with spending money on whatever product advertised. Pushing bullshit messages out designed to make us think that our own way of living is worse somehow.

I hate this 'live life to the full' stuff. What does it even mean? If I haven't travelled around the world a few times, if I haven't invented anything, if I haven't got money to spend on STUFF, does that mean my life is wasted?

"Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations".

skorpion living life to the full can mean many different things. It doesn't have to mean just giving into the consumerism and purchase power of a capitalist society.

My idea of living life to the full is making the most of what you have, being grateful and helping others in the best way you can. Plus enjoying yourself a bit along the way helps too.

I think about this all the time . I'm glad other people do too, that makes me feel better.

Animals are constantly living in the moment, because they don't understand that they are going to die.

I think there is a big pressure to be doing something meaningful with your life but I value happiness. I watch a lot of tv when I'm not at work because I enjoy it. I don't care that tv is not meaningful. When I read a book I often forget what I've read very quickly.

This is an excellent thread, OP. Thanks for starting it; it has sparked some good conversation with DH this lunchtime after I read it out to him.

Why does life have to have a great universal meaning?

I think we do all need to find our own meaning though- a purpose, anyway, which then brings contentment.

Yes I find the older I get, the less money I spend. I just can't be bothered buying stuff. I suspect if I live another 30 years my house will be sold as a house still decorated and furnished in the style of year 2000. And a lot of my most enjoyable times have been particular moments that in themselves are not amazing contexts. Like snuggling up on the sofa watching the walking dead, the day after a very late party. Or playing rugby in the sand on the beach with friends. Just glimpses of pure happiness.

I have to say, those moments when you stop and just think: "This is amazing. It's extraordinary to be alive" and can just know how amazing that is - even if it's just a moment while you're cleaning a table - are pretty precious.

I think love is quite a profound emotion and can bring you those insights. Sometimes, I feel that having loved/loving my children, kind of gives me my life back two-fold, multiplied and deepened.

But I'm probably just a bit of a hippy.

for all of you who have faced death in a very non-abstract way. The flowers emoticon is pretty trivial, and the words to convey my sympathy are really only going to be something very superficial but the intention behind them is real. May your days be deep and sweetened with joy.