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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Death-bed regret
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Apparently, the number one regret amongst those at the end of their lives is that they didn’t live ‘true to themselves’. This seems a little odd to me, and I wonder what it means. As everyone knows, nobody ever ended up wishing they’d spent more time in the office, but it seems surprising that people should most of all regret having lived a life that others expected of them.
On one hand, I can understand it. It must be natural, on one’s death bed, to appreciate the very extreme brevity of life and to wish one had made more of it for oneself. Maybe it’s a function of orienting our thoughts on our own lives that we should feel selfish, but perhaps this death-bed wisdom tells us something important about the way we live our lives, and our priorities and values.
On the surface of it, you might expect people to regret most of all their acts of selfishness and failure to make others happier- it’s certainly a Christian imperative to live charitably towards one’s fellows, I understand. Why then should it be our greatest regret that we failed to live more authentically selfishly? Is our death-bed thinking wrong, or should we pay more heed to its clarity of vision?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
I find it fascinating that people should engage in self-judgment when they know that their death is imminent. From a purely materialistic point of view, the past is the past, and it would still be the past if they had lived fulfilling lives. In fact, it could even be argued that it would be more painful to have lived a really fulfilling life (what is often termed "a good innings"), because you now have to face the fact that all that wonderful stuff has gone and is locked forever in the past. The deep sense of loss must be overwhelming.
Why the moral dimension to the experience of the end of life? Could this self-judgment not, at least, suggest a profound - and for many people - subconscious awareness that physical death is not actually the end, and that there is an objective moral dimension to existence which continues?
While this does not prove the existence of the afterlife, it certainly suggests it.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
Being true to oneself isn't necessarily selfish. It's recognising and accepting the reality of who we are and not trying to live as if we were what other people might expect or want us to be. A lot of life is wasted in trying to be acceptable, to fit in and belong in circumstances which, on reflection, were never worth the effort.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I don't think being true to yourself necessarily means being selfish. On the contrary, in looking at myself, I think that's when I'm being least true to myself. I'm Christian-romantic enough to think that the kind and generous 'me' is more truly me than the selfish 'me'.
But the link you posted rings very true. Deathbeds are my daily work. (Well, maybe not quite daily, but pretty often.) And one of the great fictions of the modern West is that if you ask someone who's dying what they would change if they had their life over again, they say, "nothing". The far commoner answer amounts to "a whole dam' bunch of stuff".
Tony Walter, a sociologist, defined what he calls "biographical pain" - quote:
the sense that my life hasn’t added up the way I would have wanted, and that it’s now too late to change it.
Tragic, and profoundly human.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I don't think people wish they'd been more selfish. I think they wish they'd had more courage - this may often translate into having the courage to do the right thing rather than the easy thing. And in turn, they think of the person who is brave and honest and true as "the authentic me" because we all like to think of ourselves as basically good people - we only screwed up that time (and all the other times) because of mitigating circumstances.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
....
Why the moral dimension to the experience of the end of life? Could this self-judgment not, at least, suggest a profound - and for many people - subconscious awareness that physical death is not actually the end, and that there is an objective moral dimension to existence which continues?
While this does not prove the existence of the afterlife, it certainly suggests it.
Double-posting to agree with this.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I don't think people wish they'd been more selfish. I think they wish they'd had more courage - this may often translate into having the courage to do the right thing rather than the easy thing.
I think that is right.
This is the kind of thing that most people wish when they are ending any period in their lives. Of course with the benefit of hindsight you lose the fear that naturally comes from not knowing the future.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Why the moral dimension to the experience of the end of life? Could this self-judgment not, at least, suggest a profound - and for many people - subconscious awareness that physical death is not actually the end, and that there is an objective moral dimension to existence which continues?
I'm not convinced there's anything particularly moral about it, nor does it necessarily imply any beliefs about what comes next.
I mean, I've had weekends where I've got to Sunday evening thinking "I wish I'd done a bit more with that free time, but now it's gone and there's nothing I can do to get it back". Such regret for things done (or more often, not done) is perfectly natural, and it doesn't surprise me that many people feel the same at the end of their lives.
They're not afraid of any judgement to come, they're just afraid it's all been wasted time.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
They're not afraid of any judgement to come, they're just afraid it's all been wasted time.
How do you know that they are not afraid of any judgement to come?
I must say that it seems rather remarkable - and far-fetched - to me, that complex conglomerations of molecules (which is all we are, according to the naturalists) should have both the desire and the facility to "stand back" to survey their lives, read some kind of purpose in it - and therefore feel regret that such a purpose has not been adequately fulfilled, interpret their lives according to some kind of moral framework (and yes, 'moral' is the correct word, because it involves an assessment of behaviour according to a set of values) and feel a strong sense of emotion about events that do not pertain to the immediate present moment. Given that the reactions of matter pertain to the present moment, and are supposedly geared to the cause of personal survival, it seems rather weird to me that any material living organism should compromise its ability to cope with the difficulty of the present moment by obsessing about information from the dim and distant past.
It makes absolutely no sense from a material point of view, but it makes perfect sense from the perspective that affirms a spiritual dimension to human life within the framework of a moral universe of purpose and design.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's a very poignant list, and I can relate to most of them. I realized quite a while ago, that I didn't want to work all the time, that I wanted to be with my wife more, and I didn't want to conform to my guilt-ridden upbringing. It's not easy to go against this, but worth it. I also broke through my family's emotional reticence, and feel a lot better for it. I hope therefore I will have a peaceful death, without regrets.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
With the recent election of Mark Sanford, my thoughts were that more folks should regret not being true to their spouse instead of themselves...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Tony Walter, a sociologist, defined what he calls "biographical pain" - quote:
the sense that my life hasn’t added up the way I would have wanted, and that it’s now too late to change it.
Tragic, and profoundly human.
This. In buckets. All the time. And I'm not even on my deathbed yet.
![[Frown]](frown.gif) ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
They're not afraid of any judgement to come, they're just afraid it's all been wasted time.
How do you know that they are not afraid of any judgement to come?
Your claim, why don't you provide some evidence?
If I get to the end of a holiday wishing I'd managed to spend more time on the beach, does that mean my holiday isn't really coming to an end, or that I'm going to be punished for my sin of beachless holidaying? And just occasionally, do you think you could surprise everyone and not pollute a thread with your half-arsed off-topic apologetics?
Actually addressing the OP, I don't think living true to yourself has anything to do with selfishness. It's about being honest with yourself and with others, daring to stand out by acting according to your principles rather than quietly conforming to the crowd.
Living true to yourself is standing up for the bullied kid, rather than standing by and being grateful that the bullies are leaving you alone. It's about coming out to your family and friends, rather than living in the closet for years in fear of what they might think. It's about telling a friend that you don't appreciate the way they talk about $group, rather than letting it go because you don't want to cause a fuss and it's not that big a deal.
It's the very opposite of selfish.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, the struggle against conformism is about authenticity, not selfishness. In fact, it's the conformist who is often selfish, as they have a false self which they have to maintain. This requires considerable distancing from others, so that I can preserve a certain image.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Tony Walter, a sociologist, defined what he calls "biographical pain" - quote:
the sense that my life hasn’t added up the way I would have wanted, and that it’s now too late to change it.
Tragic, and profoundly human.
This. In buckets. All the time. And I'm not even on my deathbed yet.
Well then, the next writer I'd think of would be David B Morris. In The Culture of Pain he talks about looking to tragedy - in its classical sense - as a redemptive interpretation of pain. To read (or write) your life as tragic in this sense, he says, is to invest it with meaning. And to invest it with meaning is to achieve catharsis.
Probably all postmodern rubbish, of course, but it rings bells with me.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
This survey was carried out in Australia, and it would be interesting to see what the answers would be in other parts of the world.
There's a certain irony in the fact that Westerners, who are already seen as the most individualistic of the world's inhabitants, might regret not having been even more focused on their own needs and dreams when they had the chance. The replies also suggest that we have very high expectations of our lives, which probably leaves us more likely to be disappointed if or when things don't turn out as hoped. I imagine that in some cultures, people don't necessarily have the same kinds of expectations.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby
Your claim, why don't you provide some evidence?
Please reread my last post, where I present certain arguments concerning the implications of a naturalistic view of death. "You did not provide evidence" is not equivalent to "I don't happen to agree with the evidence you have provided"!
(And also, read my first post of the thread, where I make clear that such behaviour does not prove, but rather suggests the reality of an afterlife. Or don't you accept the idea of circumstantial evidence leading to a probable conclusion?)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Tony Walter, a sociologist, defined what he calls "biographical pain" - quote:
the sense that my life hasn’t added up the way I would have wanted, and that it’s now too late to change it.
Tragic, and profoundly human.
This. In buckets. All the time. And I'm not even on my deathbed yet.
Well then, the next writer I'd think of would be David B Morris. In The Culture of Pain he talks about looking to tragedy - in its classical sense - as a redemptive interpretation of pain. To read (or write) your life as tragic in this sense, he says, is to invest it with meaning. And to invest it with meaning is to achieve catharsis.
Probably all postmodern rubbish, of course, but it rings bells with me.
Will it help, do you think?
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This survey was carried out in Australia, and it would be interesting to see what the answers would be in other parts of the world.
There's a certain irony in the fact that Westerners, who are already seen as the most individualistic of the world's inhabitants, might regret not having been even more focused on their own needs and dreams when they had the chance. The replies also suggest that we have very high expectations of our lives, which probably leaves us more likely to be disappointed if or when things don't turn out as hoped. I imagine that in some cultures, people don't necessarily have the same kinds of expectations.
Very good point. You can even see these differences in religious terms. I have been doing Zen meditation for a long time, and it has certainly led me to a different view of life, as this moment now, which is fulfilled in itself. This is quite different from some Western views, which are focused on achievement and goals.
But I see the idea of 'being true to myself' as having different interpretations. You can see it in a more activist way - I should have been a bank manager - or a more spiritual way - I should have been in the moment more. I suppose traditionally, old age is supposed to lead us to the latter!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Will it help, do you think?
I have no idea. People talk about being comforted by the idea that God is "with them" in difficult times. For myself, not so much. If I'm in a hole, I don't want somebody in the hole with me telling me what a great hole it is - I want them at the top of the hole, letting down a rope ladder. But, as I say, the idea works for some people.
Similarly, I could see it might be useful to see yourself treading the same path as Orestes or Klytemnestra, Iphigeneia or Agamemnon, Oedipus, Antigone, Jocasta or Philoctetus. If your story is one of their stories, I can see how it might shed a kindly light on the way ahead.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Will it help, do you think?
I have no idea. People talk about being comforted by the idea that God is "with them" in difficult times. For myself, not so much. If I'm in a hole, I don't want somebody in the hole with me telling me what a great hole it is - I want them at the top of the hole, letting down a rope ladder. But, as I say, the idea works for some people.
Nice to know I'm not the only one. I don't particularly get much out of someone in the hole commiserating with me as to what a crappy hole it is either. I don't mind if they've come into my hole to get me out of it though.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Gextvedde
Shipmate
# 11084
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I find it fascinating that people should engage in self-judgment when they know that their death is imminent. From a purely materialistic point of view, the past is the past, and it would still be the past if they had lived fulfilling lives. In fact, it could even be argued that it would be more painful to have lived a really fulfilling life (what is often termed "a good innings"), because you now have to face the fact that all that wonderful stuff has gone and is locked forever in the past. The deep sense of loss must be overwhelming.
Why the moral dimension to the experience of the end of life? Could this self-judgment not, at least, suggest a profound - and for many people - subconscious awareness that physical death is not actually the end, and that there is an objective moral dimension to existence which continues?
While this does not prove the existence of the afterlife, it certainly suggests it.
I think you've answered your own question here. The fact that the past IS the past and that we don't get to go back and change things can cause profound sadness when we come to the end. This coupled with the irony that we often only know what not to do by doing it and then deeply regreting it afterwards.
All of this makes sense on it's own and I'm struggling to see how a sense of impending judgement is needed to explain it. I'm sure some people do feel that, perhaps even ones who wouldn't expect to, but suggesting that that hints at some kind of subconcious knowing about judgement goes beyond what is needed to explain this kind of self reflection and, by it's nature lacks, evidence.
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"We must learn to see that our temperament is a gift of God, a talent with which we must trade until he comes" Thomas Merton
Posts: 293 | From: The Twilight Zone, near the M25 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
They're not afraid of any judgement to come, they're just afraid it's all been wasted time.
How do you know that they are not afraid of any judgement to come?
How do you know they are?
quote:
I must say that it seems rather remarkable - and far-fetched - to me, that complex conglomerations of molecules (which is all we are, according to the naturalists) should have both the desire and the facility to "stand back" to survey their lives, read some kind of purpose in it - and therefore feel regret that such a purpose has not been adequately fulfilled,
I never said anything about "purpose". If I look back on my weekend and regret not mowing the lawn, that doesn't mean the "purpose" of my weekend was to mow the lawn. It just means that with hindsight I think that doing so would have been a better use of the time than whatever shit I decided to do instead.
The facility to "stand back" and review our lives is, of course, a key survival mechanism of humans (and many other animals). It's also called "learning".
quote:
Given that the reactions of matter pertain to the present moment, and are supposedly geared to the cause of personal survival, it seems rather weird to me that any material living organism should compromise its ability to cope with the difficulty of the present moment by obsessing about information from the dim and distant past.
On the contrary, information from the past is a vital part of the ability to cope with the present. You won't survive long without being able to remember which foods are good and which are poisonous, or how to avoid a predator!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gextvedde:
The fact that the past IS the past and that we don't get to go back and change things can cause profound sadness when we come to the end. This coupled with the irony that we often only know what not to do by doing it and then deeply regreting it afterwards.
Yes: even if a person feels forgiven for whatever wrong they've done, that doesn't take away what is sometimes a very painful feeling of regret. I remember the actor Paul Eddington saying in an interview that he hoped his epitaph might be "He did very little harm." I found that thought-provoking and inspiring.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Is our death-bed thinking wrong, or should we pay more heed to its clarity of vision?
All I can say, Yorick, is that I've learned some of the most profound, beautiful and disturbing things I know from people who have been only days or hours away from death. I hope that some of them knew that their dying had helped someone learn how to live.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
There are a lot of things I wish I had done differently, they would make today different - more whole, more healthy, and more contributing to others, it's all wrapped up together.
It's like if you are a second base player, the way you help the team best and do well yourself as a player is to play second base well. That is neither individualism at the expense of the group, nor group at the expense of the individual.
But many of us get distracted by the pitcher saying "I need a break, you come pitch for me for a while" and if we say no, my job is second base we get accused of individualism. More likely we want to fit in, be approved of, win friendship with the pitcher (that's real individualism!) we go help pitch, leaving second base exposed and the whole team suffers because of our "self-less, generous helping others" that was not actually healthy help for the pitcher, for us, or for the team.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
At the same time, it's because of some of the horrendous mistakes I have made that I have been able to acquire the teeniest amount of wisdom. If I hadn't done that thing wrong, I would not have known it was wrong, would I? I had bad relationships, bad jobs, bad habits. So I don't regret them, as they taught me, or I learned from them.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
The facility to "stand back" and review our lives is, of course, a key survival mechanism of humans (and many other animals). It's also called "learning".
I'd be intrigued to know which animals (I use the word to exclude humans) on their equivalent of a death bed, review their lives and feel and express regret at not having done all sorts of stuff or having done things they realise were wrong (according to their moral code). Does an old lion feel bitter regret at eating that poor gamekeeper, I wonder?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
At the same time, it's because of some of the horrendous mistakes I have made that I have been able to acquire the teeniest amount of wisdom. If I hadn't done that thing wrong, I would not have known it was wrong, would I?
So you don't know that murder is wrong until you kill somebody? That just doesn't pass the smell test. We may not realize how doing wrong things can backfire on us before we do them, but the notion that every philandering husband was simply uneducated defies reason.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
I think it's important to realise that life, certainly for most of us, is full of compromises and choice points, and that the former are usually the best we can do by our own lights at the time, and that the latter may well have irrevocable consequences to which we must simply reconcile ourselves. This realisation puts into perspective any thoughts that our lives have not been quite as we may have wished; and further, there are circumstances over which we have little to no choice, so we must play the hand we're dealt. It's important to try to live with integrity and not to violate our conscience, but we are all bound to fall short at one time or another and on various things. The psychoanalytic psychologist Erik Erikson wrote of the final developmental challenge in life being that of Integrity vs. Despair. Surely, part of this involves the perspective we adopt in regard to our lives.
What I myself have tried to do is not to compromise my own essential sense of self and my essential identity, whilst realising that there are compromises and choices on less essential matters that don't involve a perfectly satisfactory solution. In my own case, the necessity of being true to my essential identity as a gay man who has always been insistent on the primacy in my life of my relationship with the man with whom I've shared a life for the last 38 years has greatly shaped my outlook. This doesn't sound terribly revolutionary today, but the world was a rather different place in 1974.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
At the same time, it's because of some of the horrendous mistakes I have made that I have been able to acquire the teeniest amount of wisdom. If I hadn't done that thing wrong, I would not have known it was wrong, would I?
So you don't know that murder is wrong until you kill somebody? That just doesn't pass the smell test. We may not realize how doing wrong things can backfire on us before we do them, but the notion that every philandering husband was simply uneducated defies reason.
--Tom Clune
I'm not sure if 'uneducated' is the word I would use. Maybe without virtue. I was certainly that, because of my utter narcissism and hubris. I thought virtue was a flavour of ice-cream. But how else would I overcome those things - through reading books?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I think it's important to realise that life, certainly for most of us, is full of compromises and choice points, and that the former are usually the best we can do by our own lights at the time, and that the latter may well have irrevocable consequences to which we must simply reconcile ourselves.
That is so true .
The word 'regret' is often misrepresented when really we are looking to describe some sort of a general lament.
TMM real genuine regret applies to a specific situation or situations, something where you had the opportunity to be true to yourself and yet passed up on it . Not a mistake, or just some vague notion about something you maybe should have done but didn't.
None of us can really know our own death-bed feeling until we're there . Our response to it will undoubtedly be human, any regret likely being centred on the immediate predicament and the fact that we're not going to see another day .
Sudden, unexpected death would rule out such ponderings altogether . I think my own father had a fear of this kind of end , so in a way it's a comfort to know he had a couple days to contemplate that things didn't look good.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I find it fascinating that people should engage in self-judgment when they know that their death is imminent. From a purely materialistic point of view, the past is the past, and it would still be the past if they had lived fulfilling lives. In fact, it could even be argued that it would be more painful to have lived a really fulfilling life (what is often termed "a good innings"), because you now have to face the fact that all that wonderful stuff has gone and is locked forever in the past. The deep sense of loss must be overwhelming.
Why the moral dimension to the experience of the end of life? Could this self-judgment not, at least, suggest a profound - and for many people - subconscious awareness that physical death is not actually the end, and that there is an objective moral dimension to existence which continues?
While this does not prove the existence of the afterlife, it certainly suggests it.
If there were an afterlife, people would be less concerned with reviewing their past history. They review and regret because they know that was the main event. If you're truly bound for Glory why would the past matter.
At most, it does not suggest the existence of an afterlife, just that many people may wish for it.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
I do not think the regrets expressed in the article are, of necessity, selfish. They could be either, with the possible exception of the last one.
I do find it very indicative of the ideals of western culture. The impression of a guide by which we are measured.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
While this does not prove the existence of the afterlife, it certainly suggests it.
How? It more leans toward a final end. If one believes there is something after, one should more be concerned with how they lived will affect what comes after than musing on what they missed.
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
Neutral.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
If there is an afterlife, why care? The reward is coming.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
Express them in the afterlife, so why the regret?
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Maybe they are saving you a spot on a really fluffy cloud. You can talk to them forever.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Buck up, buttercup; you have all the time in forever to be happy.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
To answer the OP and not the annoying claim for evidence of an afterlife; I see that regret like the regret of any artist on finishing a master work. You may be proud of it, but there are likely to be parts that you wish you had differently in retrospect. Pentimento is a lot harder with a life fully lived than it is with an oil painting.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
The facility to "stand back" and review our lives is, of course, a key survival mechanism of humans (and many other animals). It's also called "learning".
I'd be intrigued to know which animals (I use the word to exclude humans) on their equivalent of a death bed, review their lives and feel and express regret at not having done all sorts of stuff or having done things they realise were wrong (according to their moral code). Does an old lion feel bitter regret at eating that poor gamekeeper, I wonder?
That's a bit like saying "I'd be intrigued to know which animals use an LA3250 Advanced Lathe" when it's pointed out to you that many animals use tools. Yes, humans do it better and in more depth - but that doesn't mean we're doing something utterly different.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
In my experience - limited as it is - fear of approaching eternity and judgement is extremely rare. If someone is thinking of meeting God after death, it's usually with rather more confidence, or at least equanimity. But even those are relatively few. Deathbed sadness usually lies somewhere between nostalgia for what might have been and regret for what shouldn't have been.
I have encountered a handful of people who had been so traumatised by tales of gothic torment from the Church that they were afraid, but it's only been a handful. Those were the days when, if I could have called down fire on the Church, I would have.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
I don't know what I'll regret on my death bed. But it's easy to say "If only I'd ..." but you're really unconsciously adding " ... and everything had turned out as it does in my fantasies". If I'd started a PhD in Maths at 21 (rather than 48!) I would have won the Field's Medal, resolved the Schanual Conjecture and gone to bed with Felicity Kendal. Conversely I might have been bored out of my head, achieved nothing, become a drug addict, fallen under a bus and never met my wife.
Don't regret the life you had - it could have been much worse.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
If someone is thinking of meeting God after death, it's usually with rather more confidence, or at least equanimity. But even those are relatively few.
Yes we Christians with our repentance, having all our sins washed away, and being forgiven by God etc. ought really to be completely immune from death-bed sadness and regret . Lest to say, my own faith being sufficiently doubt-worthy to keep an open mind on what the point of death will feel like.
Depends how deep or strong our faith is, or maybe just how strong we our as a person . Besides I think God has equipped all His creatures with some inner mechanism to cope with death one way or another.
What was it someone famous said ? -- Death, life's last great adventure , I wouldn't want to miss it for anything--- <or words similar to that>.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
That's a bit like saying "I'd be intrigued to know which animals use an LA3250 Advanced Lathe" when it's pointed out to you that many animals use tools. Yes, humans do it better and in more depth - but that doesn't mean we're doing something utterly different.
No, that is not a valid comparison, because you are confusing difference of nature (property) with difference of degree. An instinctual biological response that aids survival is fundamentally different from rational, moral and conscious reflection at a time when survival is no longer a possibility.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
We do not "know" what animals think at the moment of their death.
Every function is a biological function regardless of one's religious POV.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Every function is a biological function regardless of one's religious POV.
Well, thanks for answering Yorick's questions in the OP:
Yorick: Why then should it be our greatest regret that we failed to live more authentically selfishly?
Answer: No reason. It's just the way the body functions.
Yorick: Is our death-bed thinking wrong, or should we pay more heed to its clarity of vision?
Answer: Wrong? Course not! It's just the way the body functions. No right or wrong about it. Should we pay more heed to its clarity of vision? Why should we? We just do what our bodies tell us to do, because we are all just bodies anyway. There is no 'should' about it.
That's it. We now have the answers. Problem solved.
Time to close the thread.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
What a remarkably simplistic interpretation of my words.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
An instinctual biological response that aids survival is fundamentally different from rational, moral and conscious reflection at a time when survival is no longer a possibility.
I was comparing rational, conscious reflection when survival is a possibility to rational, conscious reflection when it is not. Such reflection is far more than mere instinct, though you're right about it being a key survival trait.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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