Getting On

[John Fenna]

Since retiring I have come to think that I could have spent more time thinking of others.
Sometimes planning revenge more efficiently, sometimes thinking of how I can help the more deserving and sometimes thinking how lucky others are to meet me ...
No - seriously now... I have no real responsibilities, I do not care what other folk think of me and I should like to help others achieve their potential but at the same time I have the luxury of doing just as I please, when it pleases me (within my moral code!)
When I was younger I felt the weight of expectation from society, family and friends to follow the "norms", and although I managed to go my own way I was aware that it upset some ... now I am free of that pressure and it is great!

 

[TeeDee]

......also i believe that with some people get to an age when they become complacent or or have simply, had enough. After all, death isnt scary and hopefully the dying won't be either

Epicurus








And Marcus Aurelius

 

[The Frightful]

Epicurus






And Marcus Aurelius

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Epicurus, producer of average pickled onions but i prefer Garners myself. Apologies for the flipancy but couldn't help myself ;-)

 

[Chris]

Epicurus

View attachment 93033






And Marcus Aurelius

View attachment 93032

Reminds me of Mark Twain:

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it”

That said, I think for me my anxieties rest on me now, as an alive person, worrying about the sadness it would cause my family and the fact I wouldn't be able to be there to for example look after/protect my wife in moments of need. That is an anxiety I still hold. The best way I find of trying to dampen this worry is to try and do my best while I'm here to leave her in the best position possible if/when that happens. Also as oldtimer says, I try my best just not to think about it. Thinking about it too hard causes rumination and worries which are outwith my control, so doesn't feel productive for anyone if I do so.


Then I suppose there's the Christopher Hitchens view:

"It will happen to all of us that at some point you'll be tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party is over, but slightly worse: the party's going on but you have to leave."

 

[Toddy]

I think the mind is kind to us as we die. I think we see those we loved who've gone before us, and the joy in seeing them again, in their welcome, makes the passing from one breath to never another, a gentle thing.

I know having been so ill that the mind travels through our lives, brings up old memories, long forgotten voices and faces. It's astonishing just how much is packed away in our grey matter.

I sat and talked with a very old lady in hospital last month, and she spoke of her youth, school days, weddings, old memories surfacing, of the pleasure in remembering family and friends long gone. She sang snatches of songs, spoke of the fun, and the hard work, of missing her husband, of her delight in her babies all grown up and becoming old themselves, in seeing her grand and great grandchildren become parents themselves, of the changes in the world in her lifetime and how she thinks they had it better, less stressful even if it was harder physically and with so much less than we have now.

To quote a friend though, "Ye're a lang time deid. Y're no' deid yet !"
(translation for the non Scots.....You're dead for a long time, but you're not dead yet! )

Enjoy the life you have, keep it interesting

M

 

[TeeDee]

Reminds me of Mark Twain:

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it”

That said, I think for me my anxieties rest on me now, as an alive person, worrying about the sadness it would cause my family and the fact I wouldn't be able to be there to for example look after/protect my wife in moments of need. That is an anxiety I still hold. The best way I find of trying to dampen this worry is to try and do my best while I'm here to leave her in the best position possible if/when that happens. Also as oldtimer says, I try my best just not to think about it. Thinking about it too hard causes rumination and worries which are outwith my control, so doesn't feel productive for anyone if I do so.


Then I suppose there's the Christopher Hitchens view:

"It will happen to all of us that at some point you'll be tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party is over, but slightly worse: the party's going on but you have to leave."

I thought you were going to quote this from Twain , which is still somewhat relevant.

 

[The Frightful]

Since retiring I have come to think that I could have spent more time thinking of others.
Sometimes planning revenge more efficiently, sometimes thinking of how I can help the more deserving and sometimes thinking how lucky others are to meet me ...
No - seriously now... I have no real responsibilities, I do not care what other folk think of me and I should like to help others achieve their potential but at the same time I have the luxury of doing just as I please, when it pleases me (within my moral code!)
When I was younger I felt the weight of expectation from society, family and friends to follow the "norms", and although I managed to go my own way I was aware that it upset some ... now I am free of that pressure and it is great!

Loving the revenge vs help others mix, thought it was just me !

 

[Pattree]

I wish we could bring death into daily lives so that it becomes more accepted without fear. What’s wrong with a good cry around the bed.

I have forgotten which National Trust property included a bed in which rows of holes were drilled into the frame on either side. These were to take candles when it became a death bed and a reminder when it wasn’t.

Maurice Chevalier was asked what it felt like to have reached eighty years of age.
His reply :
“Not bad considering the alternative.”

After my father’s funeral my eldest daughter was kind enough to remind me. - ‘Dad, you’re at the end of the twig now!’

I am long retired. There are attitudes and things going on in Britain and British society that I do not understand and some that I do not like. Part of “Getting on” is for me, the realisation that this isn’t my world any more. My experience is rarely appropriate for today’s conundrums. I may give advice if I’m asked for it. If I do so without being asked then I cannot complain if I’m ignored.

I can still be perfectly happy in my own little cosmos.

 

[Woodland explorer]

sadly my brother passed away a few weeks back 4 weeks after being diagnosed, only mid 40’s, this has very much made me re evaluate a lot of things, and although I’m only 40 it does make you worry that life can be cruel and unduly short.
Fortunately as mentioned by Toddy, I do appreciate the simple things in life and that nature can bring, and this has definitely become even more apparent, I’m finding a lot of comfort at the moment in simple things like feeding the birds or a walk in the woods.
It’s this loss that has brought me back to this forum, as it’s reminded me how much I love nature and bush craft, and that I need to find more time for this

 

[Chris]

sadly my brother passed away a few weeks back 4 weeks after being diagnosed, only mid 40’s, this has very much made me re evaluate a lot of things, and although I’m only 40 it does make you worry that life can be cruel and unduly short.
Fortunately as mentioned by Toddy, I do appreciate the simple things in life and that nature can bring, and this has definitely become even more apparent, I’m finding a lot of comfort at the moment in simple things like feeding the birds or a walk in the woods.
It’s this loss that has brought me back to this forum, as it’s reminded me how much I love nature and bush craft, and that I need to find more time for this

Very sorry to hear about your brother, especially at such a young age.

 

[Chris]

I love this Dawkins quote, which I think is actually a rather beautiful way of thinking about things:

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”

 

[Nice65]

......also i believe that with some people get to an age when they become complacent and or, have simply, had enough. After all, death isnt scary and hopefully the dying won't be either

There’s a book I read while Lara was dying, “With the End in Mind”. It’s a lovely, entertaining and enlightening read that takes us Westerners and our fear of death into a better perspective and understanding. It’s a book for anyone to read, highly recommend it. Kate Mannix, the author was a palliative nurse who when asked by a group of midwives what she did, replied she did the same as them, but at the other end of life. Which is help the patient understand what’s happening and that there’s nothing to fear.

I’ve had a lot of synchronicity and coincidence happen since, to the point of it being unusual. I’ve met 2 people who have had NDE’s (near death experience), both actually died and were most peed off they got brought back and now look at death without any fear. Both of them said they were at peace, with the spirits of their families, and looking forward to the return at the right time. That’s just in the last couple of weeks, just after I’d listened to a podcast on reincarnation and NDE’s that I put on accidentally in the car while jabbing at the phone for something else. I tend to let things ride these days, don’t poke it with a stick, and it was really interesting.

I thought of two/three things I live by, or try to if I catch myself quick enough. ‘Be kind to everyone for everyone is fighting a battle’. This applies to the git’s that cut me up in the car, overtake dangerously, flash lights etc. Maybe they or their wife just got a bad diagnosis, maybe their dog died, I dunno. If they are genuinely uncaring idiots then I tend to regard them as ill. What I definitely try not to do is allow their projected emotion to be passed by me to another person, it can stop with me. Most people don’t realise they do it and will tend to try and off the anger to someone else or have a rant, maybe a row with the wife. This is my introverted thinking rather than others extroverted thinking. There’s way too much extroverted thinking in the world, it’s the cause of all ills.

Herbert Spencer - “There is a principle which is a bar against all information , which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

And this, no idea who said it, but I heard it somewhere - ‘I’m sufficiently intelligent that I can learn from anyone.’

Just had to flit up to the OP to check how off topic I’d gone. Not too bad for me, reasonably relevant. Progress, not perfection, I’m ok with that.

 

[Tengu]

My Father is getting on now.

I fear I will not survive his passing.

Forgive me.

 

[Pattree]

You will. However impossible it seems it’s how life works and you are equipped to survive it.

 

[Nice65]

True enough. Based on those averages, I guess you reach a point where you can be pretty sure you've got less time in front than behind. A certainty of sorts.
The ant and the grasshopper is interesting. I was thinking about how those really ingrained strategies change or adapt for different people and at different times.

I like the caterpillar and the chrysalis story, where the old caterpillar is getting tired and telling the other caterpillars he’s not long for the world.

@Tengu As said, you will survive. You have strength you don’t know you have until it’s called upon. I watched for 8 months a lady I’d loved for 20 years deteriorate and die. Made over 70 journeys for treatments and emergencies, full carer throughout, knowing deep down the inevitable was going to happen many years before we’d anticipated, and in a very horrific and frightening way. I got through. I’m kind of damaged by trauma, still very tired, but I did get through. You could read the Kathryn Mannix book I mentioned, it’s a series of anecdotes about people she’s taken along the path, it’s easy to read, and takes some of the fear out of death.

 

[Jared]

I love this Dawkins quote, which I think is actually a rather beautiful way of thinking about things:

The book inspired Nightwish to write an album, and song "The Greatest Show on Earth". When they performed at Wembley 2005, Dawkins came on stage and recited it.

 

[Chris]

The book inspired Nightwish to write an album, and song "The Greatest Show on Earth". When they performed at Wembley 2005, Dawkins came on stage and recited it.

That song coming on my playlist is exactly what reminded me of it. Brilliant song.

 

[Nice65]

That song coming on my playlist is exactly what reminded me of it. Brilliant song.

Probably that synchronicity at play

 

[Tengu]

Yeah, but hes my only close family.

 

[Pattree]

Has your father been given a formal expectation of life? There are aspects of life that are inevitable. Enjoy your his company as much as you are able for as long as you have.

At the same time look after your own well-being.