Are we living or dying?

Ahh, my first posting to this board…so greetings to all of you! I hope this hasn’t already been covered, if it has I’m very sorry but here we go…

“I suppose that’s it, you get busy living, or you get busy dying” - Tim Robbins (Shawshank Redemption)

You could look at the above quote and simply say it’s optimism Vs Pessimism, but I think there’s more of a point to it. Is the countdown started as soon as we draw our first breath? Or are we simply set free to live, making more and more of an impact on the world until our time expires? I see on closer examination that this topic has already been touched on by Mohammed posting

“What is life? What are our objectives in life? Ok, we have to go to school, so we can go to Uni, so we can get a career, so we can get a job, so we can get married, so we can have a family, so THEY can grow up, and repeat the cycle again…RIGHT? Then what?”

But I would still be very interested to read people’s opinions as to whether they feel they are living or dying.

Olly

I shall post you something which i have on my bedroom wall. When people say to me “what is there to live for? We strive for better things in our life, we get a good education for a good career, to provide for a family but for what?” I send them this passage.

“We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a
baby, then another. Then we are fustrated that the kids aren’t old enough
and we’ll be more content when they are. After that we’re fustrated that we
have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of
that stage.

We tell ourselves our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her
act together; when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation
when we retire.

The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now. If not now,
when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It’s best to admit
this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life.
But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten
through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to
be paid. Then life would really begin. At last it dawned on me that these
obstacles were my life.

This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness.
Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment that you have. And treasure
it more because you share it with someone - special enough to spend your
time - and remember that time waits for no one.

So stop waiting until you finish your course, until you start another
course, until you lose 10 pounds, until you gain 10 pounds, until you have
kids, until your kids leave home, until you start work, until you retire,
until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until
Sunday morning, until you get a new place to live, until Spring, until
Summer, until Winter, until your song comes on! Until you’ve had a drink,
until you’ve sobered up, until you die, until you are born again to decide
that there is no better time, no better time than right now to be happy.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

It begs the question of whether it is useful to ask whether we are living or dying when perhaps we should be asking, are we happy? Biologically we are dying from the moment we are born but that is only an interesting bit of trivia used by people who think they know it all (trust me, i use it ). I prefer to think that we are living until we die rather than gradually dying from the moment we are born.

I’m pretty much in agreement with Ben. I know it’s an oversimplified way of looking at it, but yes, I’d say it’s entirely to do with happiness. I don’t think I know anyone who sees their life as “dying”, so I guess the people I know must be fairly happy. I’ve certainly never seen things that way. To be honest, I don’t even really think about it. Which means either
a) I am far too simple minded for a website such as this
b) I’m just getting on with life

I also think it’s pretty hard for any of us to judge, because (I think, unless there’s some secretly posting grannies) we’re all so young. For example: when we have 2 weeks off school (like I just have had), for the first week I’m thinking “whoo… time off school” and for the second, I’m thinking “argh… back to school soon”. School could be a fairly weak analogy to death but I basically think it’s hard to talk about dying until you’re a bit closer to it.

i agree with nicola here, it is to hard for us to say we are dying now as we are all so young (remember i'm not a 20 something office worker Ben :stuck_out_tongue:) but i do think, at the moment, it's a balance between the two. in some respects we are dying, eg biologically, but in others we are living, eg learning and experiancing new things. but ultimately we are probably dying. it may not always be the case, if become immortal then it's a whole different question.

I’m glad to see the level of optimism still present in this cynical world! Ever Since I saw “The dead poet’s society” the expression Carpe Diem (live for the day) has been in my head. I think it’s sound advice, though as Ben’s post shows, it’s sometimes very hard to follow. I would have to answer my own question by saying, biologically we are dying…yes. But the amount of living we do is up to us. That’s my new year’s resolution anyway!

Olly

------------------ In exams the foolish ask questions that the wise can not answer - Oscar Wilde

Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Tennyson.

another ‘‘dead poets society’’ reference, but lets be honest, it was a great film.

and nicky, i’m more simple-minded than you are so watch it

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by ben:
Biologically we are dying from the moment we are born

sorry ben i have to disagree with this. Until somewhere between 18 and 24 your body is growing and maturing. Then, fair enough, thats when your body starts to die. Sorry, i’ve taken this from a completely scientific point of view, but…thats me

yup you are right tall gnome, well spotted. my mistake

you could argue that technically we are constantly dying and being reborn, our cells die and are replaced continiously, so are we really the same person we are born as?

My goal in life:- To get out of it alive.

—Below message from Freddie, because he can’t register quite yet—

“Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans.” - John Lennon

Freddie

I think we are only start dying when we stop learning. When I think of someone who is dying, I imagine someone like my grandmother, who is definately on the downhill slide. She is extremely forgetful and now cannot remember practically anything, and has forgotten how to cook, how to switch off the television etc. She has stopped learning, started forgetting. As long as you are learning in any sense of the word then surely you are becoming a new person. Every time you learn something new, a new connection is made in your brain. You have just become a different person to the person you were a split second ago. I don’t know whether I am making any sense but anyway. Incidently, someone did some scientific research on learning, and they found, unsuprisingly that people who carried on actively learning for longer (stuff like learning new languages etc) lived for much longer. So guys, carrying on visiting this site often enough and you should carry on living indefinately!

[This message has been edited by clara (edited 10 February 2002).]

tall gnome: damn right. from a purely physical point of view. you are born, you grow up to adulthood… then your body and its functions start to deteriorate, and its a downwards slide from then onwards. Clara’s point also fits in with this model.

Living is dying.

Death is the finality of our life slowly having run out.

Everyone dies. You are alive, hence you know you are going to die at some point in the future. You are always getting closer to that time. If you want to look at that way, you are dying from the moment you have an opportunity to die (being concieved).

‘it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees’ - aeshclyus

i think frank said it best:

I’m gonna live till I die
I’m gonna laugh stead of cry
I’m gonna take the town turn it upside down
I’m gonna live, live, live until I die

I think you can only answer that question when you have defined the meaning of living and dying as you have applied it to your life.

Actually it is both. Since we are, by nature, mortal and have not yet found a cure for death, the countdown does start from when we’re born. We know that we are going to die. We may not know exactly when and how but I dont think that matters.
IMO the finiteness of life is exactly what makes it valuable, but thats a topic for another thread, maybe [:)]

• Sivakami.

I think that the meaning of life is overlooked far too much. Maybe there is not a reason to live and we just do. Or maybe the purpose of life is to be purposeless.

All I know that in life happiness is important as above posts indicate, it is one of the many reasons for living. But life is also a challenge daring you to live each day and fight against your negative feelings about living.

If living is not what you want it to be, then make it how you want it to be. After all I believe that you yourself have a part in shaping your future, it is your actions and choice that lead you along the path of life.

Just remember impossiblities have been proved possibilites so learn that limits can be pushed…

if ya ask little ol my opinion… i think the entire biological meaning of being “alive” is a bit of an abstraction from the processes that underly. i mean all it is saying “this set of chemical reactions” is a condition ot being alive. well tehre is nothing about thoes set of chemical reactions that allow life to be… its not like their purpose or anything shurly. the laws of the universe are just being followed as they are happening to be followed and you get sumtin that grows, and procreates n’ such.

anyway for thoes of you who think i just went off on a huge tangent there, i wasnt… i actually have a point!

i think that all of the universe (not universal conciousness style here) is alive in a way, so in that sense we are not living or dieing (i hope you know what i mean in saying this… it sounds like a contradiction i know… but since im abstracting from something so basic i cant really give it an actual word)… we are just coasting on the neverendin string of infantly tiny intereactions that make up reality =)

man i swear 2 years ago reading that i would have laughed at myself.
but yeah, tahts my take on things =)