To ask if you think coming into existence is a good thing for every human

[Pavementworrier]

We all live through pain at some point. Hopefully also joy (although I'd say that's a fairly modern possibility for ordinary folk). When you make a child exist is it always a good thing, regardless of the balance of ups and downs? Are you grateful just to be here for this experience no matter how it goes?

(Inspired by a conversation on another thread)

Ditto! Personally, I love things like a great sunset, the sound of rain, and apples eaten straight off the tree. You know, timeless things our ancestors would have found joy in too 🙂

Kinda sucking the joy out of life

Nativities and joy do not live in the same postcode.

It's a nice rite of passage but let's not overdo it.

(Ironically I think I'm a lot happier and more confident than most people - maybe because I don't take things too seriously and can process hypotheticals?)

Put down the internet, OP, read some books, and feel the joy of no longer being ignorant and showing yourself up all the time.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 ok edited maybe you can recommend me some Top Clever Reads

if you are happy and confident, why are you being so rude and insulting to people replying to you in good faith?

War and Peace will keep you out of our hair for some time.

I had wondered about this over the years myself and thought that on balance it would only be very exceptional circumstances that would render someone better not having been born at all.

Then 5 weeks ago my oldest daughter died, entirely unexpectedly, age 24. The pain I am enduring is so bad I feel I have been skinned alive. I am demented with grief at the loss of her and I truly wish I had never been born, never existed at all. This despite us having a really happy life before. All that previous joy is not worth the pain I am now in and I would end my life in a heartbeat to escape it, but I have to continue for now for the sake of my other children. I have been told the edges of the suffering will soften over time. Who knows. All I can say is that right now I just wish I could erase myself from existence.

Ahh fuck am so sorry ladymacbeth that's beyond horrific.

Now I'm completely convinced this is a wind-up! Only someone engaging in satire could claim to not be able to conceive why anyone who didn't live the exact same life as them would even bother to continue living, while accusing someone else of lacking empathy.
Hilarious, comedy gold!

@LadyMacbethWasFierce I am so very very sorry for your terrible loss.

I don't know if you have spoken to these people but they have really helped my family https://www.cruse.org.uk/. Their services are free. I will be thinking of you.

I kind of get what you mean. I honestly don’t see the point of any life - as in if a great meteorite took every living thing out right now then so what. But whilst some living things remain then it means the rest of us want to remain also. I’m not fussed about existing - but for my dc. Not sure I am explaining it well. I just don’t see the point of living things at all.

Exactly! There’s a lot of positives and in my opinion essential needs that mod cons can’t replace! But let’s wind our necks in, you know we are only simple folk 😉

If you could live another fifty years but only if you went back to the time before rights or medicine or sewerage or independence would you?

Absolutely! I dont think it's an either/or scenario either. Many things are better now, but that does not mean people were all sad all the time before, and nor is everything better now.
Listening to the birds and watching wildlife is also one of life's joys!

I am so very sorry. There are no adequate words, but you are in my thoughts.

That is heartbreaking, I’m so sorry for you and your family.

To answer some of your questions OP.

Yes, I am grateful just to be here for this experience no matter how it goes.

A child exist is it always a good thing, regardless of the balance of ups and downs. My grandmother had my father on the day the second world war started. I can't imagine what was going through her mind. Despite the state of the world at the time she watched him grow up, get a job he adored and which served society, marry a woman he loved and raise a happy family. He had a long happy life (with all the ups and downs, joys and losses). He lived a full and fullfilling live.

No, I wouldn't go back in time if it gave me another 50 years. But not because of outside toilets, but because the people we love and they wouldn't be around me.

It's the people we love and who love us who make existence a good thing. This has always been the case, even when people only had a pot to piss in.

i think the natural instinct is to have sex and, especially pre-contraception, children were an unavoidable consequence. Which is still the case in countries where contraceptives are difficult/impossible to obtain, & abortions are illegal.

Well said!

But a lot of us will outlive those we love. Some never have any.

I always shudder at the thought of my female ancestors having 10 or more children and what it must have done to their bodies. Let alone the actual risks of pregnancy and childbirth. But then I don’t think women had much of a voice about it. Men would rather the woman risk it than go without, and the marriage vows dictated that a wife has promised to submit. I would have found that a miserable life.
Of course, this is still the life for many women in different parts of the world today.