Does anyone share my fear of eternity?
 

Most people would like to live for Eternity. For some reason it's my biggest fear and it makes me all crazy to think about eternity. But maybe because I am human, and cannot understand. Or maybe I am already tired of life, I have no idea. But it seems to me that I would not like to live eternally, as for now? I may feel different later but that's how I feel. I have not met anyone else who has this fear or anyone who can understand how I feel.

Because of my personal faith not only do I not fear eternity, I look forward to it. I believe in eternity, in heaven and hell, and I believe that I will be spending eternity in a place where the passing of time will not seem burdensome, or fearful.

No I'm with you on that, sometimes I find the idea that my life and awareness will end quite comforting, the idea of eternity as a hellish kind of existence is well recognized and has been used to highlight how bad bieng immortal would be - cultural references like highlander and interview with a vampire use it

I often think to myself that to learn any of the higher crafts well probably takes at least 20 years of hard work. To become a master probably takes even longer (maybe up to and beyond 50?). So you can spend a lifetime learning one craft or art form. Now imagine having many lifetimes! That's really exciting. Of course there would be long stretches of your soul rejecting new knowledge, and getting bored with learning, but I've been through those times myself and they pass.

In the end, well - there would be no end. You can never come up with enough to do for eternity. Or could you? I think you'd force yourself to do stuff just to not be bored. You might spend 2 years curled up in a ball, floating through space, but eventually I know I'd try to find a way to create something new to occupy myself with...after all... I'd have plenty of time!

I would love to be immortal (as long as I also had eternal youth and the option to end it all if I was bored).

You see, when we die, I believe that that's it. Game over. The essence that is us ceases to be.

I would love to live forever as I am quite curious to see where humanity is going with all of this...

*raises hand* I'm with you. I don't see how living forever could be interesting. Of course, given my personal beliefs, I trust that it will in fact be interesting, but that's something I have to take on faith.

asaris, it would be marginally more interesting than being dead forever.

I prefer the idea of living for eternity than being dead for eternity. Not that my preferences will have any effect on which of those two options is real.

An eternity would be far too painful. Yes, there's always more to learn, but to what end? Your family and friends all die off after 80-100 years and you're alone. Make more friends, why? To watch them all die too?

The conecept of eternal life seems initially like a great boon, but the more one considers the less appealing it is. For me, anyway.

It's hard to understand when you don't explain much detail. Do you fear living with yourself, as yourself, for eternity? Perhaps your fear is because you don't believe you can change, or the world around you change, and you fear living in it and/or as yourself for eternity. I don't fear eternity (certainly not!), but if you want people to understand you should explain in more detail. It might seem irrelevant.. but do you have nightmares?

Not really. If you're dead forever, you can't be bored.

No, but you certainly can't be interested either. I suppose it's one of those half-empty/half-full things.

The question is whether or not boredom is a zero-state, and so the equivalent of no interest at all, or if it's better counted as being a negative counterpart of interest. This might just be a difference of intuitions.

I'm with Charlatan in the sense that I believe that when I die, what makes me me is gone (where to, I don't exactly know).

However, to live forever scares the crap out of me. I can't imagine what it would be like to continuously go on, and to see everyone around me that I love and care for die.

I have no real interest in living eternally. I think that the most exciting part of existance is outside of the circumscribed state we call life. Life is incredibly important, don't get me wrong. And I fear dying. But being "dead" is as far as I'm concerned a way of reintegrating with a much greater realm of existance. I am not referring to heaven and hell, because I think those are human interpretations of what is much more than that. So I wouldn't want to spend an eternity being alive - because that would be denying what is vaster and more important. The opportunity to live for a few thousand years on the other hand . . . that would be very cool.

I don't know if you fear it for the same reason I do, but I get the feeling that no one in this topic actually grasped the big picture. They're all looking at eternity as a very long time. What they're missing is the crushing blow: It never ends. I find it hard to believe that anyone could truly grasp eternity without getting that punched in the gut feeling that you get the first time you grasp death (as more than just going to sleep and never waking up).

My entire concept of existence is just destroyed by it. Can you really imagine anything without that cap at the end? You're never finished with eternity. It just keeps going. No matter what outcome it is, whether heaven, hell, nothingness, or reincarnation it's just horrifying to realize that there's never a real end.

Live for eternity? Sure, why not? What would be the difference between being alive for an eternity or being dead for an eternity. Since time would be eternal, it would cease to have all meaning, 100 million years would be absolutely nothing, not an infintesimal decimal of a percent. I don't believe that you'd ever run out of stuff to do because conditions are in a constant state of change. At least that would be if either of 2 out of 3 predicted futures* of the universe are correct. And if your dead and cognizant of it, then there would be no difference, you'd just be dead instead of alive, still left to face the concept of EXISTING for an eternity. Of course if you cease to exist when you die then it would be better to be dead, because you would no longer have anything to worry or care about, cause you'd be non-existant.

*1. The universe keeps on expanding forever. 2. The universe expands until an equilibrium is met and stays that final size forever. 3. The universe expands, then stops expanding, then begins collapsing into an infinitly small point(This is the one I'm pretty sure would cancel the idea of living for eternity).

Thanks for all your comments. I guess these different ideas do help me to understand the possibilities after death and actually give me a different perspective now. You know to be honest I thought I was the only person who actually felt this way. Feeling like you're the only one sucks sometimes. We can all help each other to understand the future in some way or another. It's been my fear because it's a fear you can't really face. I've don't know what's after death. Other fears oon earth I can easily face because you just have to step up to it. It may take some time but eventually you can get over something. I hope you can understand why I feel this way. But I guess I can hope good things for the future and just have trust in that. What else can I do...

I don't fear eternity in it's self. I fear repetiton, for eternity.

Maybe repetition is what I fear too but I never realized that it is possible that change is constant and that eternity might give us something new all the time... Does that make sense?

I'm not looking forward to death. But so long as it's 40 or so years off I would be stupid to complain at what happens to us all and I've had a better life than so many.
I can't believe in living for eternity
without a body, eyes, and a brain it's gonna be hard to have much fun!

in my opinion, everything must come to an end at some point.
absolutely everything... including life. it's just a natural part of life that everyone must go through.

i think getting so old that im completely dependant on others is just as terrifying as death.

i heard that as you get older you become more happier because growth is happiness. despite the fact that we think that it'll be sad to be older, the majority of old people say that they're the most happiest they've been in their life. just a thought.

Its the fact that no one will ever live an eternity that should make us cherish our life and existence more.

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Eternity is more of an idea rather than a reality for us humans -right? Our minds can't even comprehend the idea of Eternity. Living for eternity, existing forever....ooooh.
Tecoyah? :confused:

I think all humans experiance eternity, even if when we die, it is a void that we aren't conscious about. Think about it: If when we die, there is nothingness, then it would be eternal nothingness. If we live on for an eternity, it takes care of itself. There is an eternity, and we will all experiance it, but I'm not sure HOW we experience eternity. I think that nothingness after death is a paradox, as we will SOMEHOW, I'm not sure how, but somehow we will experience nothingness, for if nothingness exists, as it probably does, then it still exists...

I need to quit smoking pot.