Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:36 pm
ken wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:46 am
I can never keep up with you dontaskme.
One post you will write, "You can't actually die", but the next you write, "and then you die".
Well do know why that is?
It's because I can that's why.
It's all just words...who knows what life is, what death is, except what is made-up using words. Humans love a good story.
What book are you going to curl up with tonight with your nice hot cup of cocoa?
Can you not decipher between what is real and unreal yet, obviously not?
Humans do love a good story.
One of them is that the spirit lives on after the body dies. Therefore, 'you' (the spirit) does not actually die.
Another is that 'you' (The body) dies; you live and then you die.
Quite a few more out there...stories or philosophies of life...
Each one comes with label attached. So that when you browse along the shelves, you can choose which suits you best. Some fact, some fiction. Then there's faction: a mix.
Unfortunately, life and death are not 'just words'. They are as real as the hair on your head.
Some face that fact and deal with the realities; accepting all the pain and pleasures involved.
Others detach - sometimes due to anxiety. So many different stories we can tell about life, at any point along the line
Of course, we all have our stories - our perceptions are often incorrect. Especially the assumptions we make about others in an apparently opposing faction.
'Fear of the other' can be manipulated by story-tellers to disastrous effect.
Xenophobia just one example.
It is easy to turn one group against another, using psychological techniques.
Issues of self-esteem and hypersensitivity or paranoia also play into it.
And so it goes...
'So it goes' - 3 famous words from 'Slaughterhouse-Five' hold the key to understanding the humanism that underpins Kurt Vonnegut's work. Fatalism, stoicism...of life and death.