The only thing I fear more than life is death. Or more specifically, what might lie beyond. Things would have to be utterly terrifying here for that leap in the dark to seem preferable. It could easily get that bad, but until then I’m stuck. I’m suffering, and in pain, and I hate it. I’ll complain, ***** and moan, struggling with myself, desperate looking for some way out. But I won’t actually do the one thing that would end it all. Not until my future in this world is so scary that death seems easier. Fear is everything in my life.
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We share a common fear. No matter how logically I approach this issue, the fears of a Catholic and Christian upbringing still haunt me. I have to wonder about the accuracy of the teachings of these cults. We are here, and we are given no instructions other than instinct, and yet we’ve constructed so many different belief systems, some of which insist on eternities full of punishment. And yet, there are no clear guidelines in place for living, other than the legends and myths WE’VE created…how peculiar. By that logic, there are trillions of humans who lived and died prior to these fables who are now serving their sentences in lakes of flames or other such punishments because they didn’t follow the instructions set forth by flawed humans AFTER they lived and died. This is how I cope with this issue. I ask myself why would we be facing an angry, vengeful “deity/power” that never told us HOW or WHAT we’re supposed to do here. I know that all sounds too easy, but it’s all I’ve got….we’re a species whose Christian tradition claims that the creator of the universe, the Big Cheese, the Grand Poobah, the Man, created US in his image…what an arrogant lot we are…we finally figured out the flaws in the Earth centered universe theory, but still insist we look like the Numero Uno guy up in the sky…all because he’s in love with us. Our ego knows no limit!!
Doubtful that helps, you’re intelligent and aware, but that’s how I sleep at nights as I ponder the ramifications of a possible exit. Just how important do we need to believe we are to be content? A grain of sand holding billions of little self important beings, floating in a cosmic beach amongst an undefinable quantity of other grains of sand, and we need to believe we’re going to be sent to our rooms by the Head Honcho for misbehaving, but at least he’s in love with us and wanted us to look just like him. Snicker chuckle guffaw. Right.
Something tells me we really don’t need to worry about it…if the creator of all that is needed us to follow directions, I kind of figure there’d be a set of instructions as clear and unchanging as sunrise in the east and sunset in the west…but there isnt. That’s my hedge against the fear and worries religion has heaped on me.
But I’m just a lost sheep with an opinion I HOPE is right.
Have you ever looked into Alan Watts or similar spiritual teachers?
@Once – I think for me it’s partially a guilty conscience. It’s not that I violated any specific doctrine of a particular sect. It’s that I failed to maintain basic humanity – the common sense stuff that pretty much everyone agrees on. If anyone deserves hell, it’s me. I fear having to answer for my actions – not necessarily to a theistic god, but to anyone. Even just to exist with full self awareness could be tortuous.
If there is such a thing as a common morality, intuitively knowing right from wrong, then I’ve violated it.
If you truly want to punish yourself, then make yourself experience social consequence. If you’ve violated common morality, learn from it. You recognize what you’ve done and that is the first step. This is of course from a very, very outside perspective considering I have no context for what you may or may not have done. Death is not a punishment but a release.
I don’t want to punish myself – at least not enough to put myself through that. When I say guilty conscience, I mean the fear of having to confront what I’ve done – a subconscious awareness of the weight of it. Learning is hard when you see no path back to normalcy – what are you learning for? A large part of me craves the release of death. But my fear traps me.
I think you are doing a fine job punishing yourself with your own guilty conscience. Once you let go of the guilt of the past, but retain the lesson not to do it again, then maybe you can move on.
I’m not sure the lesson will ever be truly learned. It feels like I’m always just a step away from going back. And I don’t think I can let go of the guilt when no one else would – possible it’s more shame than guilt.
It doesn’t make you a coward. Fearing death is most human.
I suppose it’s that the fear is so great that I won’t end my suffering. It controls me. That’s what makes me a coward.
You fear it because your body instinctually knows that it’s not the right choice. You become your own predator, you become your own prey.
I don’t trust my body (or more primitive emotions) to know what’s right. They’re part of what led me to this state.
Don’t Fear the unknown.. Better to die Truthful to yourself than to Slave away to Faith.
Nice!
Well, in a way fear is what moves us and keeps us alive, it’s been proven quite a lot of times. And yes, fear of the unknown is worst than fear of the known because you don’t know if it’s going to be better or worse, you could end up in even more suffering.
At times i wonder if even with perfect conditions (which are going to happen eventually, i’m kinda waiting for that) i’m going to be able to go through with it, exactly because of that very same reason.
I worry about that – what if the things I most fear in life really do come to pass, and yet I’m stuck enduring them, simply because fear of the unknown paralyzes me. That seems like such a dumb choice, but I can easily imagine myself making it. I want to find some way of overcoming that part of myself, so I know that if things get bad enough, I’ll make the smart choice.