Confronting Death

[JPS]

If my gut feeling is correct and if death is the end of all experience, then it doesn't seem something to worry about. People who worry about death itself are invariably in the wrong: they worry about experiencing what is essentially a nonexperience, subjecting themselves to the absence of a subject. Death is not an eternity of nothing; nothing about death is depriving or subversive; death merely brings life to a close, and that's that.

Death causes me quite a lot of worry, however, not because of the 'experience' of death itself but because of the way in which it profoundly limits our tenure on this earth. Whereas immortality would grant us the opportunity to become anything we wanted, death forces our hand and makes us into something we're not. We have only a short time to become ourselves, and few of us if any are taught to use this time wisely.

Rather, people often flounder through their lives in a sort of perpetual confusion which they've refused to even acknowledge. They take what's been prescribed them and simply move on through life as if they had plenty of time left. Problems are carried to graves unresolved. What we need to understand is that it isn't by dint of the future that we attain our freedom; soon enough, none of the future will be left over and we'll be stuck with the present.

I guess that what I'm wanting to say is the following: learn to be stuck with the present. Holding something off is a fatal mistake; in the last analysis, the future is an empty consolation, a receptacle for the forgotten from which nothing can ever leave. The future is where ideas go to die. Don't let it trick you.

Now that I'm done with my rant: what do you think about death and the way in which people should confront it?

 

[computerhxr]

Death is an inevitability. Health is a part of life, so you should take care of yourself. Live life like you know you're going to die. Try to take the most honorable and least painful exit possible. Make as few enemies and give people good things to remember you for. Have a positive effect on the world and let your image live on.

It's normal to fear death. I used to think that it was the end and given it little thought. Now I think of it as more of a re-configuration of atomic mass. Your energies and quantum materials are the product of past experiences and all that lives inside of you. They communicate though your subconscious and give you sense and intuition. You are deconfigured, so cognition will be more of an abstract form with less specificity. Like seeing with your skin or hearing with your bones. Who knows it's probably just another experience with everything that you've been entangled with over time.

Life is an experience. Learn everything that you can and experience everything that won't bring you closer to the end. Try things that seem absurd and every once in a while something will open your mind and bring your life a greater meaning.

 

[Brontosaurie]

i think anger is the correct attitude towards death

you don't come to peace with it or accept it. to cease existence is the worst thing for a being. sure death is natural but equally natural is our struggle against it. to claim having gone beyond that is either super fake or pitiful cock sucking cowardice - probably both. but straight fear doesn't seem right either. seems weak, subordinate, surrender and practically perished already. non-acceptance is best. anger. boldly declaring that it cannot continue.

 

[The Grey Man]

i think anger is the correct attitude towards death

you don't come to peace with it or accept it. to cease existence is the worst thing for a being. sure death is natural but equally natural is our struggle against it. to claim having gone beyond that is either super fake or pitiful cock sucking cowardice - probably both. but straight fear doesn't seem right either. seems weak, subordinate, surrender and practically perished already. non-acceptance is best. anger. boldly declaring that it cannot continue.

It's the ultimate struggle. To defy death is to defy nature. There is no grander adversary.

 

[Brontosaurie]

It's the ultimate struggle. To defy death is to defy nature. There is no grander adversary.

defiance is perhaps a more precise and eloquent term than anger yes. only crux is: that presents death as the authority. should such a relationship between will and death be internalized?

who knows, maybe that measly "acceptance" thing is actually the opposite extreme of the oppression. as such: fear-defiance-wrath-ridicule-irrelevance-acceptance

(you know you're INTP when you start doubting your conclusions the instant someone else even remotely agrees with them)

 

[The Grey Man]

defiance is perhaps a more precise and eloquent term than anger yes. only crux is: that presents death as the authority. should such a relationship between will and death be internalized?

who knows, maybe that measly "acceptance" thing is actually the opposite extreme of the oppression. as such: fear-defiance-wrath-ridicule-irrelevance-acceptance

A sort of "authority", yes, since you are an instance of consciousness whereas death is the supposedly inevitable outcome of the general case. Idk about that chain though. Whether or not you accept death would depend on the reason why you concluded that it's irrelevant, whether you'd conquered it or determined that it doesn't need conquering.

(you know you're INTP when you start doubting your conclusions the instant someone else even remotely agrees with them)

Too true. If anything I do or say is accepted or applauded by others, I feel as if something's terribly wrong, and it's going to bite everyone in the ass later. Usually I'm right (in some roundabout way), and often the problem is totally unrelated, but comes to light during this process nonetheless.

 

[cheese]

to claim having gone beyond that is either super fake or pitiful cock sucking cowardice - probably both.

[Nothing against you Bronto, I like you.]

I hear variations of this a lot and it's irritating. You really don't know the mind of the other person. You're just projecting your own fears and assuming any mental model which doesn't match your own is artificial, perhaps because your own is so strong and consuming*. I genuinely had zero fear or sadness about my own death from as early as I could remember. I couldn't comprehend it in others and tried hard to, but the whole thing seemed nonsensical for the OP's reasons. It just didn't make sense. I did deeply fear the death of loved ones but only because I'd be around to suffer loss. My solution was to die when they did.

This attitude has changed a little recently but is associated with several foundational changes that more or less constitute an overhaul in personality and perception (it's not a religious change). I now have no reliable access to the style of thinking and perception I had before in regards to many things. Whether this is an emotional growth spurt, the result of experience or some kind of neurological accident is irrelevant. It'd be just as inaccurate to say Aspies are 'faking it' - they're wired differently and literally don't make the same connections or respond the same way others do.

I actually do agree that it's a bit suspect to 'make peace' with death if it's something you have a problem with though. I feel the same way about people who get all gooey over grief, or losing loved ones. I think it's possible some of them are not experiencing the same thing others are, though who can say for sure.

*Since the changes mentioned above, I've started doing this too, in areas where I hold an emotional value so strongly that I viscerally reject anything else in others and assume all sorts of things about them (including self-deception). It's actually good to see this in others to remind myself to fix this behaviour in my own life.

 

[Yellow]

I have had a bit of time to think about this while sitting through pointless tests and deciding whether to bother with ineffective (masking) treatments for a disease that is going to kill me quickly, slowly, or maybe not at all.

Death doesn't move me much in one way or another. It never has (actually the idea of living forever is terrifying to me). I'm not afraid of it, nor do I feel a defiance or anger toward the idea of death. Dead is dead. Everyone and everything (as far as we know) dies.

Thought of the decay that comes before death is hard to confront. The idea that someday I may not be able to learn as well, that I may not be able to talk or walk whenever I will it, that I won't be able to recall a thousand bits of useless information whenever I want them. The idea of lingering on as something less than myself is what makes me feel defiant and afraid. I suspect, at that point, death will be a happy prospect.

 

[Pyropyro]

I find the idea of aggrandizing oneself as some sort of unique existence against the tide of chaos amusing, as if the world would stop functioning when one stops existing. Perhaps self-praise does sooth the fear somewhat but in the end it's still a pointless task.

I'm interested in defying death by prolonging life but I'm going through a different angle. I defy death but not necessarily because I'm prolonging my life. I'm merely a link in an unbroken chain forged by my ancestors (both biologically and metaphorically). As such, I think a life's worth is to prepare itself as fertilizer for the next batch of lives not unlike how dead animals and fallen great trees sustain others. My job is to pass my knowledge forward and ensure that the people after me have a better environment (and therefore chance) to discover the secrets of this universe.

 

[StevenM]

I like how some people posted that the struggle against death is natural. Is it not the whole point of why we have evolved?

Most people can't just stay sitting on the tracks as a train barrels closer. Something primordial takes over your motor skills, and you move out of the way.

Not always, in all circumstances though. But the process of finally deciding to die does not come without a whole bunch of hesitation and fight, and a struggle with the reptilian brain. It's mostly hard-wired into us, the main imperative is to survive.

*****
I'm not sure what happens on death and after.

I would suppose that if you are not 'conscious', there would be so much nothing, that even nothing wouldn't exist. You can't be unconscious, and say to yourself "wow, this is a long time of nothing". Thus billions of years could pass instaneously, or even better, time itself wouldn't exist at all. If by a weird fluke or chance that you do become conscious again, in any era of time, and in any way, it would seem to happen instantaneously after death.

Or....

What if the moments before death, a persons perception of time warps and starts to crawl at extremely slow speeds. Where one second would turn into years for the person experiencing it, and again continuing to slow down more, one millionth of a second would become thousands of decades. The brain would still be technically alive, and offering some kind of experience.

Bleh, what a silly concoction of a theory.

 

[QuickTwist]

I like how some people posted that the struggle against death is natural. Is it not the whole point of why we have evolved?

Most people can't just stay sitting on the tracks as a train barrels closer. Something primordial takes over your motor skills, and you move out of the way.

Not always, in all circumstances though. But the process of finally deciding to die does not come without a whole bunch of hesitation and fight, and a struggle with the reptilian brain. It's mostly hard-wired into us, the main imperative is to survive.

*****
I'm not sure what happens on death and after.

I would suppose that if you are not 'conscious', there would be so much nothing, that even nothing wouldn't exist. You can't be unconscious, and say to yourself "wow, this is a long time of nothing". Thus billions of years could pass instaneously, or even better, time itself wouldn't exist at all. If by a weird fluke or chance that you do become conscious again, in any era of time, and in any way, it would seem to happen instantaneously upon death.

Or....

What if the moments before death, a persons perception of time warps and starts to crawl at extremely slow speeds. Where one second would turn into years for the person experiencing it, and again continuing to slow down more, one millionth of a second would become thousands of decades. The brain would still be technically alive, and offering some kind of experience.

Bleh, what a silly concoction of a theory.

Thanks I think I just understood a message my grandpa was trying to tell me by his actions before he died.

 

[StevenM]

Is it okay if I ask what that message was? Or at least, what part of my post you were referring to?

 

[JPS]

I like how some people posted that the struggle against death is natural. Is it not the whole point of why we have evolved?

Most people can't just stay sitting on the tracks as a train barrels closer. Something primordial takes over your motor skills, and you move out of the way.

Not always, in all circumstances though. But the process of finally deciding to die does not come without a whole bunch of hesitation and fight, and a struggle with the reptilian brain. It's mostly hard-wired into us, the main imperative is to survive.

The main imperative of evolution, I feel, isn't survival—it's reproduction. The body deteriorates after the reproductive stages of our life, which shows that evolution doesn't really 'care' beyond that point whether we live or die, though we may cling to life for the same reasons that we did prior to our deterioration. This sort of clinging, paradoxically, is proof that life doesn't mean for us to survive beyond this point; indifference to death would be a welcome change in this stage of our life, a change which evolution has not supplied us.

So—yes—while I do believe the will to survival is an important aspect of our condition, it is really the will to expansion that drives us. Survival, if it were the only imperative, would dictate a totally Spartan lifestyle: we would gear ourselves toward war and disaster without the slightest regard for what to do in our 'spare time'. Art would be counterproductive, as would literature and philosophy.

In conclusion, I don't believe death is unnatural. Evolution itself 'presumes' death. Though it is often to be avoided, it isn't in any way an 'accident' of our condition that can be thrown away—though we may soon evolve the technology to do exactly that. Even so, I'm certainly not signing up for that program; people have tampered with their condition enough already.

 

[redbaron]

Survival in evolutionary terms refers more to survival as a species than it does survival of individuals. Species typically learn to flourish either by spread or longevity. Turtles are a good example of longevity, rabbits are a good example of spread.

Humans have uniquely managed to become both by unnatural means. Previously we were a species that spread quickly relative to our lifespan. It's only due to technological developments that we've developed our longevity - when homo sapiens first developed we were lucky to live to 15 years.

So for a species that relies on spread, reproduction and survival are really the same thing. I think that humans have these intellectual and emotional issues because we're actually "designed" to die young. We're physically impotent yet gifted (cursed?) with the power of intellect. Intellect that we've used to unnaturally prolong our lives and are realistically, completely unprepared for. Intellect that we can use to contemplate issues like prolonging life, beyond a mere instinctual level.

So because we can contemplate things at well beyond an instinctual capacity, we now have problems of intellect as well as problems of instinct.

Not sure what my point is, the discussion just made me think of this stuff.

 

[Brontosaurie]

[Nothing against you Bronto, I like you.]

I hear variations of this a lot and it's irritating. You really don't know the mind of the other person. You're just projecting your own fears and assuming any mental model which doesn't match your own is artificial, perhaps because your own is so strong and consuming*. I genuinely had zero fear or sadness about my own death from as early as I could remember. I couldn't comprehend it in others and tried hard to, but the whole thing seemed nonsensical for the OP's reasons. It just didn't make sense. I did deeply fear the death of loved ones but only because I'd be around to suffer loss. My solution was to die when they did.

This attitude has changed a little recently but is associated with several foundational changes that more or less constitute an overhaul in personality and perception (it's not a religious change). I now have no reliable access to the style of thinking and perception I had before in regards to many things. Whether this is an emotional growth spurt, the result of experience or some kind of neurological accident is irrelevant. It'd be just as inaccurate to say Aspies are 'faking it' - they're wired differently and literally don't make the same connections or respond the same way others do.

I actually do agree that it's a bit suspect to 'make peace' with death if it's something you have a problem with though. I feel the same way about people who get all gooey over grief, or losing loved ones. I think it's possible some of them are not experiencing the same thing others are, though who can say for sure.

*Since the changes mentioned above, I've started doing this too, in areas where I hold an emotional value so strongly that I viscerally reject anything else in others and assume all sorts of things about them (including self-deception). It's actually good to see this in others to remind myself to fix this behaviour in my own life.

to be frank, i used to have the same view as you used to. worrying about death seemed irrational to me but now i consider that perspective irrational and way too easy. almost like it's borne from naivete, sometimes combined with the ego invested in rational detachment (which is just one aspect of a rational mind).

you're right i can be harsh and bigoted. useful reminder. but pretending to be more open minded than is actually the case is kind of problematic. now i'm assuming people just say "everyone has an opinion, all perspectives are valuable, all is subjective and relative, i really appreciate your inputs" etc as a mantra without really feeling the weight of these words. admittedly, it may be that i'm close minded and unable to picture not being close minded. anyway: being candid about my cognitive and moral limitations is a motive behind emphasizing condemnations. cards-on-table kind of thing. maybe you can relate.

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

It's only due to technological developments that we've developed our longevity - when homo sapiens first developed we were lucky to live to 15 years.

what is your source for this figure?

Estimates based on regressions of anthropoid primate subfamilies or limited to extant apes indicate a major increase in longevity between Homo Habilis (52-56 years) to H. erectus (60-63 years) occurring roughly 1.7 to 2 million years ago (Judge and Carey 2000). Predicted life spans for small-bodied H. sapiens is 66-72 years. From a catarrhine (Old World monkeys and apes) comparison group, a life span of 91 years is predicted when contemporary human data are excluded from the predictive equation (see Table 2). For early hominids to live as long or longer than predicted was probably extremely rare; the important point is that the basic Old World primate design resulted in an organism with the potential to survive long beyond a contemporary mother's ability to give birth. This suggests that post-menopausal survival is not an artifact of modern life style but may have originated between 1 and 2 million years ago coincident with the radiation of hominids out of Africa

source

 

[redbaron]

The article you've sourced is dealing in potentialities of maximum (and maximum average) lifespans. It does note that the chances of organisms reaching such ages is likely to be, "extremely rare".

I wasn't trying to imply that humans can't live long by natural means. Rather highlighting the fact that psychologically and socially speaking, we haven't typically lived in a world where we almost automatically assume that we'll reach advanced age. Whether or not we're simply biologically capable (obviously we are) isn't what I was getting at.

I'm approaching this more from the perspective of comparing how different generations of humans would view the concept of confronting death, based on the environment (social environment as much as physical) they were raised in.

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

even if survival to maximum potential lifespans was extremely rare (which is quite speculative), the fact that it occurred at all would have meant that all individuals exposed to the knowledge that it were possible either personally or via story telling would have considered it a possibility for themselves - just as a child today might assume it will live to be as old as its grandparents but actually might get hit by a drone tomorrow. i don't think the odds of something happening or not are something humans are particularly good at incorporating into their realities.

 

[redbaron]

I don't really think you got my point but I'm not sure I can explain it any better. I'll try clarify.

When I say "lucky to live to 15" it's in reference to the high mortality rates at birth and during childhood. Life expectancy in the Paleolithic was ~30 (according to what little data we have). People would often live to over 40 and over 50 potentially if they managed to live past 15.

What I'm curious about is what people who live in a world where life is typically short would think of "confronting death". Would it be more instinctual or intellectual?

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

my point was that despite the low average life expectancy, individuals would probably assume/hope to reach the upper ranges of what they knew from experience to be possible - just as most people do today. so what the actual average life expectancy was may not have had much bearing (beyond the fact that infant mortality would have been accepted as a normal part of life) on the way people "confronted death".

it would probably be more interesting to study the psychology of individuals living in a war zone or working in professions with high mortality rates.

 

[redbaron]

I see wherr you're coming from, but I don't really find what you're saying to be particularly robust, since you're building speculations upon other speculations.

Your post raises more questions. How do we know what people would have hoped? How do we know that this specific thing would proliferate via stories? How do we know that it would be a well known occurrence amongst people? How can we even begin to conflate the social mindsets of people from entirely different eras to people today?

it would probably be more interesting to study the psychology of individuals living in a war zone or working in professions with high mortality rates.

Where did you get the impression that what I'm saying wouldn't include those things?

The thing is, our life expectancies are greatly increased by advancements in technology. Medicine, sanitation, adequate shelter.

Also maybe worth noting that lifespan and life expectancy aren't the same thing.

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

i don't think any of my speculations were particularly outlandish. if they are not robust enough for you why not ignore them and return to your own speculations about the fact that we're "designed to die young" and "haven't typically lived in a world where we almost automatically assume that we'll reach advanced age".

Where did you get the impression that what I'm saying wouldn't include those things?

i don't believe i said that what you were saying wouldn't include them.

 

[nanook]

c'mon, how long ago has it been, that you were fully absorbed by a survival oriented stage of development?

you were fully concerned with the present moment, with survival, with being alive, not with the distant future, with growing old.

the ability to care about your future hasn't even emerged in many modern teenagers, it's a recent feature of evolution and every individual must repeat evolution in his lifetime.

how old someone gets or how old his parents are has nothing to do, with how much one is attached to his own hypothetical growing-old-potential.

young people want to go to war and will not allow their parents to talk them out of it.

why? because fighting feels like an honest and direct expression of the will to survive. you have the present moment opportunity to become stronger than your environment, when you join the army.

it's an expression of strong survival instincts. and in the past, the survival of humanity depended on the will of the individual, to take risks like that and to live up to the challenge, instead of hiding out in a low energy state, that is not conductive to procreation.

you can't raise children, when you can't secure your country from alien invasions. likewise women can't give birth to children, if they don't leave their parents to go wherever all the young men have gone, so they will also take risks in the spirit of life.

in evolutionary drive the importance of survival and of procreation of the whole species are balanced against each other, but both are equally expressions of life and therefore both are equally opposed to death (of you or your species).

 

[nanook]

Anger is the most authentic relationship with an 'approaching' death.
I mean 'death coming at you'.
It's not the 'best', it's the least neurotic/mentalized one.

What drives our relationship with life is evolution. It's just a fact, that we are driven, there is no feeling quality attached to it, at the lowest level.

The will to live is neither fear, nor anger but those are the emotional reactions to our life being threatened, depending on whether the threatening circumstances are avoidable or ask for a fight. They are only attachments, that exist relative to the drive.

To worry about how death/after-life goes down or to hold a particular grudge about how much might be lost or similar is just a mental distraction from the immediate visceral relationship with a perceived threat.

If there is no current threat and you are still busy entertaining those distractions, it's obviously unfortunate. Distractions don't help to be be fully alive.

But you have to transcend and face your conditioned mental distraction-strategies as objects, when you return into the visceral reality of your nature.

You can't stay as unconscious of them, as you are, when they drive you from behind.

For instance if you are afraid of loosing things you may be so busy being greedy about them, that you forget about the fear that is underneath your greed.

How about sorting your porn archive into folders named after the V.I. type of the actresses, instead of doing something more novel.

If you can become conscious of the fear/anger, it means you attain the option of not enacting greed and then you have a chance of fully appreciating whatever opportunities you may have in the present moment.

But becoming aware of and one with nature without neurotic filters isn't fully liberating, because the same nature that wants you to 'live to the max', instead of hiding in a secure cave, wants you to eat and fuck all of the time, which is a bit of a bore, especially when food kills you and fuck is not available.

No, it's not true. Evolved human nature makes us do more than those two things!

Anyhow, liberation from the struggle with life and death (spiritual awakening) must go beyond going beyond neuroticism, it must go even beyond 'nature' or 'evolution'. Trancendence is inclusive though, not dissociative. Going beyond sth does not mean abandoning sth.

 

[nanook]

The story of prometheus, as i interpret it, is about anger about death.

Prometheus represents the evolving ape that has become conscious of his own life and mortality and proceeds to attempt to hold onto life consciously. Prometheus steals life from god, meaning from it's integration with the whole totality of all life.

He feels like a criminal who escapes from prosecution, because he feels that violence is needed to hold on to life. His relationship with life itself, meaning with god, with the original source of life, is a violent one.

This violence consumes him, and he is caught up in this conflict. This is the bird of false freedom eating from his body, this is the chains that chain him to the rocks. For as long as he holds on to life, life can not be free to become something other than this miserable repetitive experience.

And this is not the will of god, of the source of life. The source would allow him to let go of life, so life can become spontaneous and creative again.

Prometheus needs to "forgive" his own history of attachment to life, which happens to underlie his feeling of being guilty of being attached. That means he has to let go off repeating this history.

God can't forgive him, because the god is not a real independent entity. God is just a mirror in which prometheus sees the projection, that is implied by his relationship with source.

As far as God is concerned, Prometheus might as well remain chained to those rocks forever, while having delirious dreams about incarnating into mountain goats.


[bimgx=250]http://i.imgur.com/MFpYX35.jpg[/bimgx]

Mountain goats are a symbol of the devil. The devil is a symbol of the individual attachment to life. Prometheus can only have 'evil' incarnations, incarnations into mountain goats, as long as he is attached to life.


This is my own interpretation, don't be surprised if it's completely different from what the daimons of wikipedia say.

This interpretation is inspired by my personal entheogentic experience of my relationship with life and death. I have completely invented the part about the mountain goats.

 

[OrLevitate]

Some here say it's impossible to be at peace with death, others wonder how they can think such. Humanity has been at this for time immemorial. Seeing those who are at peace with death as a valid perspective, rather than a delusion, is up to the observer.

There are two parts of me, the one that's at odds with death, who doesn't let it rule my actions. Who is selfish. Then there's the other part of me, which abnegates the individualist concept of the self, and doesn't see death as an end. It's hard to hold on to the latter self, due to the myriad biological reasons stated before me. Making a big deal out of consciousness (i.e. ego) can inhibit holding on to the latter, too. Is peace with death simply another positive illusion? What of the ego, an illusion too? Realism is subjective, in my opinion.

I don't see prometheus' relation with life as a violent one, rather a dissident one, the part of the mind that steals from gods, in favor of life. I'll shrug and laugh at death, a bit angrily, until I'm about to die, then I'll probably place more emphasis on interconnection and the negation of self. We do what fits our experience, we adapt by donning a jester's hat, or a viking helmet, knowing all these others have died and we will too, and we don the pope hat when we get scared of death, when the unknown draws closer, the insecurity breeds certainty.

My circumstances are that I'm inescapably biologically driven to live, contrasted with being a speck of dust that will decompose and recompose to further exist beyond death. The concept of self is the fulcrum. We all find a place in between the two that fits our experience. Adverse circumstances foster an important sense of self, a life of ease fosters abnegation and peace. There are many patterns of tendency to be observed by relating an individual's circumstances to perspective.

Denying death's circumstantial position of authority, and denying life's circumstantial position of authority, are two extremes of perspective brought about by subjective circumstances. Both universally human perspectives. I like to try and see through both at the same time.

 

[StevenM]

My circumstances are that I'm inescapably biologically driven to live,

I may have been wrong to say that the whole purpose of our evolution was to survive. What OrLevitate wrote was better articulated of what I was trying to say.

I was just merely pointing out our automatic-nervous system (particularly the sympathetic nervous system sub-part), which seems to be always ready to save us from life-threatening situations. It's extremely hard to by-pass this system, and it's been believed it's better not to do so. Otherwise, you'd jump off buildings without a care in the world.

It's an interesting system, as it does extremely quick calculations without you even knowing. It can determine even a small chance of survival, and fight for it.

However, upon being pinned down by the tiger, and the calculation reveals no chances of surviving, finally the ANS surrenders, and a strange sort of peaceful depression sets in. An acceptance of what is to be. No longer does it need to torture you into fighting or fleeing, the most efficient thing to do is let you be in peace.

It's also interesting how this system effects other things, like sexual arousal, but that's getting off topic. Automatic Nervous System - Wikipedia

 

[TheManBeyond]

If you can become conscious of the fear/anger, it means you attain the option of not enacting greed and then you have a chance of fully appreciating whatever opportunities you may have in the present moment.

But becoming aware of and one with nature without neurotic filters isn't fully liberating, because the same nature that wants you to 'live to the max', instead of hiding in a secure cave, wants you to eat and fuck all of the time, which is a bit of a bore, especially when food kills you and fuck is not available.

No, it's not true. Evolved human nature makes us do more than those two things!

Anyhow, liberation from the struggle with life and death (spiritual awakening) must go beyond going beyond neuroticism, it must go even beyond 'nature' or 'evolution'. Trancendence is inclusive though, not dissociative. Going beyond sth does not mean abandoning sth.

lol
indeed, too examples of going too far with each:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBPzJZ6USF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guDz9-yici4