WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE IMMORTAL?

Having been touched by an exchange between Alexander and me, I was deeply thinking about the question:

Would you like to be immortal?

On a certain level, I already dealt with this question many times. Whenever I got into a situation of fearing death - either my own or those of another person. There is also the indirect fear of death in people who are strangers to me and fled to my country because they feared death or pain in their own. I saw fear of death in the nurses and the staff of the hospital my mother died. From signs of uneasiness and avoidance of direct eye contact as well as the avoidance to comfort the dying and the relatives by words of courage and compassion. Also, I was in contact with some after-fear as I was almost hit by a Porsche on the highway which I did not see coming and pulled over to the left just a nanosecond after it passed me with super speed.

The greatest fear I encountered so far is the fear of those who helped me to deliver my child into this world.
If the process of giving birth does not flow accordingly to the concept of the people involved, they start to fear death.

They call it "complications" but indeed it's about death.

They serve messages as "the heart rate of the child becomes of our concern", which means: we fear it may die. Then they traumatize you in order to get over with interventions both, verbally and physically violent. Their fear then is pulled all over me by their brutal actions. Which produce so much fear in me that I want to hit them back and I can't and then I want to escape and I can't. ... What am I supposed to do other than dissociate myself from this event?

... Can one be augmented up to the point where instincts are all erased and a new superhuman arises? I mean, it should be known that all creatures fear death, not only humans. There's an instinct of wanting to survive in the eye of a deadly perceived situation.

Fear is highly contagious.

Like the flu. It jumps from one person to the other within seconds.

... So I am thinking: In order to become immortal, I would have to become fearless first.

Not fearless of death but fearless of pain.

... and, would that not have the consequence of not wanting to be immortal? Just because I do not feel the need for it ... when I am not attached any longer to the idea of fearing pain, immortality would lose its attractiveness...

Because ... as long I am fearing pain (bodily or mentally connected) immortality wouldn't change a thing. Still, I would carry a body of which I would fear to be hurt by unpredicted events and causes. ... Can humanity erase all unpredictable events and causes?

... And if yes, what would life then be?

... And is this not actually the hidden wish of not wanting to even have a body?

So immortality has to come together with hundred percent health and youth. This would mean that I count on medicine and treatment which fixes me like the doctor in Startrek whenever I hurt myself or was hurt by others. In the series, they still built in the possibility that the doc cannot fix all diseases. Of course not, otherwise the protagonists would just act without any fear whatsoever and would be killed just so by unknown bacteria or aliens. Also, it would be boring to death (haha) watching a bunch of people who do not fear anything. Tension would be all gone and the reason watching a movie with it. Except there are still characters left, who are frightened.

The tragic-comical part in me tells me: Common, at least we need some drama.

Without it, life sucks. Which is true. People actively seek dangerous situations in order to feel a thrill.
If they can't have the thrill in real life, they watch instead a Thriller. I find it a proper name.

People say in order to overcome physical pain there are painkillers. Which is true. What is with the gaps in between where the painkiller wears off and the suffering starts anew? In order to avoid every pain whatsoever, I then would have to take painkillers all the times. Which means I numb myself to certain experiences like overcoming pain with other methods or seeing pain having gone all by itself. Which is something people report.

Have you dealt with the moment when a medicine (drug, compensation thing) was about to end and the panic involved not to reach the new one in time?

What I know from painkillers is that they must contain a stronger dose the longer I take them.

This all pays into the pressure of being prepared, watched, "cared for". Pressure to saving lifes at all costs. Pressure of perfecting live & not tolerating times of not having the slightest idea what to do about a problem. ...

... Within my exchange with Alexander I got mad several times. I felt despair, anger and the wish hurting him. Why? I felt hurt by his attitude and also I felt fear. It got all mixed together. My experiences with pain and death and the imbalance I can recognize within my society to be on the safe side sacrifices the human need for becoming fearless.

I also felt the desire to create consensus. See similarities instead of differences. A person in me who appreciates him and is convinced that he feels, likes and dislikes in the same way I do. Which for sure is the case.
...

From how I see it, the many efforts to make people save and healthy root from the anxiety of being hit by pain.

... Can I change that for myself?

Can I transform my anxiety into something more reliable?

I think so. The methods and the philosophy and psychology offered to me in this regard I find remarkable. There I feel a positivity & hope and there I find refuge.

That all doesn't mean I do not appreciate painkillers. I do. I had them myself and I will use them further on. When I cut my finger I use a tape in order to stop the bleeding. When I am in an acute state of physical and mental pain I can choose to rely on what is offered on the market.

The market offers a lot. But what I don't want to see being brushed off the tableau is also the offer of ethical guidance.
I don't want to feel as if I am in a minority. I strongly depend on other people who assure me of their integrity, their compassion, and their ethics. When I cannot see a common definition how then can I see from where they pull their decisions and advice from? I see my society has stripped itself off religion. With what is the gap filled?

So far the common definition of ethics was delivered by religion.

As the word "religion" alone had become a matter of ridicule in my world, one doesn't dare to speak out loud that one has a connection to spirituality and the need for feeling held within a community which makes this transparent to their members. Instead, I move within a realm where highly educated people feel uneasy to even touch the topic.

What I nevertheless find is that almost every realm of human interaction is connected to morals and ethics. Like bad manners in business, betraying partners (business or private), stealing what is not owned and so on and so forth. These virtues are indeed embedded in our moral code - why then is this so deeply neglected when it comes to the question of birth and death? Those are the events which have the greatest connection to ethical questions yet I feel them being mistreated.

Alexander was not the first one and probably will not be the last one I debate this matter with. Sometimes, like now, I am thinking this is not the right environment to raise those questions.

Where is it?

... The reason why I feel isolated at times is that I believe myself being in a minority. Up to the point that I may be the only person which is interested in ethics. I know that is not true & a desperate construction of my mind.

Immortality might take place in another dimension, I really don't know and it is of low priority to me.
Immortality is as much unimaginable as imagining death in it's already taken place form.

I cannot imagine being dead in the same way I cannot imagine being undead.

I do not see a problem therein. For me, the problem lies elsewhere.
Overcoming fear is what it is about if you ask me. I cannot overcome fear by overcoming mortality.

What disturbs me of the Western way of life and perceiving the matters of birth and death is this:
the low tolerance of accepting different kinds of lifestyles. Tolerating that there are people walking this earth who do not carry the same notions I do. Who are totally alien to me. Whose cultures, traditions and beliefs are to my utter distaste and may disgust me deeply. Does my disgust give me the right to desire they may overcome what I call simple minded or technologically behind?

Does what I perceive as a problem give me the right to solve it even though it does not appear to be a problem for them?

What I find as a blind spot in Alex and in others, I had this debate with, is this:
in order of not being observed as a human with low tolerance, those others have to have the same problem I already identified within me.

Finding the flaws in religious or spiritual beliefs is a common thing.

When I convince myself that a religious belief is just a psychological trick which compensates hating my life (or stagnating in indifference) than my religion creates suffering in the first place. This beats up all other arguments because when the greatest flaw - hating life and therefore having the desire to die - is identified as a problem, there is no way out other than to come up with the solution: get rid of this religion (= get rid of this pain).

What if that is not the problem, though?

I think I heard it from Alan Watts when he talked about polarities. The notion ...

a.) ... that everything is pre-set, is destiny and therefore one cannot do a thing to set the course of one's life (Karma is often misunderstood in this way) or the notion

b.) ... that everything is manageable, doable and solvable. There is no problem which cannot be solved and like God man can be the architect of nature & also conquer it

Those polarities I find everywhere. Biologists are having wars with sociologists or ethnologists. One states that diseases are encoded in the DNA and identifies human sickness and cure of sickness in manipulating the DNA and the other that raising children and the cultural and ethnological circumstances are either the problem or the solution in societies. Psychologists find the cause of conflicts between humans in early childhood and neurologists do see the cause of crazy behavior in damaged brain areas.

None of them is completely right and completely wrong.

... It makes it though really difficult to find a way for myself to remain with my integrity.

When I am in treatment of this or that person, I get reasons and procedures that give me the appearance of absoluteness. First of all, I actually need a consensus on the ethical superstructure with all of them.

If I ask people about their ethics - I do so - I get the answer:

"Well, I'm not religious or particularly spiritual. Of course, love is important" ...
I don't know how to define love, nor do I know how a person defines it. But I want to rely on the fact that I am dealing with a person of ethical principles. ... Why should I not be prepared to adopt the ethics that wise people have already formulated before me? Because they wear a label? Why, then, can I not put that aside and instead of finding the errors in the labeled, want to recognize the validity of ethics first?

At least I truly want to recognize people where I can put my trust in and find a place of being guided and consoled. I need a label. Otherwise, I wouldn't know if it is the right place for me. If Buddhism is dismissed in the same way as Christianity is already dismissed (at least where I live) I find myself lost.

I am happy and I appreciate that all the monks & nuns on the Internet give free speeches

- thank you, orange robes!

I had moments in my life where what they offered, supported me in staying calm and telling myself: this will pass and better times are about to come. They helped me a great deal to handle my private relationships as well as doing my social work.

... Alex, it hurts when you dump them (... and therefore me) - of course, I know you did not dump them- as much as it hurt when I mentioned that your arguments are intellectual. ... What can I say? ... The pain involved here is just the same pain as the physical one. There is this thick process of back and forth and of trying to understand each other. In reaching out the unknown participants of the Internet we came here. It already feels different. ...

I do long for consensus. And I think you do that, too.

In the hope you don't mind that I actually spoke mostly to you but also to all of you who can find some resonance in what I revealed, I finish this off.

Maybe a cartoon would have delivered the same message, I don't know. I wish I could find one ;-)

Now on my search to find something to laugh about I looked up a comment from Reinhard and he gave me this:

that is so BAD ASS!

:-) Thank you.

And thank you, Alex.

You're a pain also... ;-)

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^{Porsche: Photo by Campbell Boulanger on Unsplash}