OK I am frustrated, and not just by an unresponsive computer.

First, in the earlier posting I put my points in personal terms, trying to make it more effective; maybe I shouldn't have as this seems to mislead people to think I'm talking about a personal problem, and I am talking about death, a universal problem.  The point I make is that it is a problem, something wrong that we should try to fix.

Second, when I say I "fear" dying, it is not like I hide under the bed.  I rather resent people boasting about how they don't fear death so much but this or that instead.  Horse hockey puck.  Let us be honest, if not on these boards at least to ourselves.  Also, if there were no fear there, then what virtue is achieved in saying that those who lean on religious notions of personal after-lives are largely motivated by this fear?

Finally, let me make it clear that I agree there are worse things than death, although when one reminds oneself that death is forever the list becomes short.  There are circumstances where I would die for my family and friends, even for my country and certain ideals.  Indeed I would rather die myself than kill someone.  I have had this discussion before -- I think it takes a visceral understanding of death as a real thing to understand this, as the unfortunate notion of a "right" of self-defense is so ingrained in our cultures.

I need to follow up a little on my last post based on some feedback I've gotten.

I don't need any particular help dealing with all this, I just want to talk about it.  We all have angst about death from time to time and after a longer life we get experienced in dealing with it (although I am prone to depression anyway).

I don't think death is "natural," or if it is then that is beside the point -- we are not born to die -- we are born ambitious and rebellious and loving and forming bonds and grasping -- death is the last thing we are born to do.  The idiots who say they wouldn't want to live indefinitely should put a boundary on and then be prepared to kill themselves when they reach it, and not find an excuse.  The point is given health and security, we do not want to die, ever.

This idea that all must die to "make way" for others is in my view just silly Malthusianism -- all kinds of ways to deal with it other than killing off the old folks could and would be put in place if aging were to be defeated (defeating all death would be more difficult but would come in time).  More than likely population growth would stop on its own, as we see now in the more advanced countries where children are not as much needed -- indeed in many populations are now declining or at least would be if it weren't for immigration -- the United States included.  Besides, it's a big universe.

My point is that the fact of aging and death strikes me as evil, something wrong, something causing suffering and grief and fear and no end of religious idiocy.  That it is "natural" does not make it right any more than if it were unnatural that would make it wrong.  Right and wrong have to do with suffering and its avoidance and even with pleasure, not with nature.

My seventy-second birthday is in a few months.  Every year this thing called a birthday happens no matter what I do, and every year it gets worse, and every year it brings up thoughts about death and wondering how much longer I have.  Of course I am not alone.

Having, it seems, overcome the health problems I was having, I find myself in spite of my age able to continue my work, since it is mainly mental.  I can't travel as I use to but the internet nowadays makes that unnecessary, so I am productive and have no excuse for feeling sorry for myself.

Still, each year that passes is a year closer to death, and I fear both dying (the discomforts and emotional things and so on that it implies) but, more, I fear death.  I have no illusions that there is nothing there to be afraid of -- that is the problem -- there is nothing there.  Long ago I grew up and stopped believing childhood pablums about heaven where all the little puppy dogs go and hell where evil people like to imagine their enemies (since I don't think I really have any enemies and in my life can only think of one person I ever hated -- and now I just feel sorry for him).

We have a biological instinct to want to survive (animals that don't do their utmost to survive in the short term don't and therefore don't have progeny and their genes disappear).  Does this explain the human desire to live?  I don't think so -- otherwise we would not have suicide as the ultimate expression of despair -- nor do animals with such an instinct really have any conception of death anyway.  The biological survival instinct causes us to move our fingers from a hot stove, but does not cause us to sit and wonder about what we are doing with our lives, is it enough, and how much time is left.

I suppose it might be some sort of side effect of this instinct -- but how this would work doesn't suggest itself, to me, at least.  No -- it is plain enough to me that although death is real it is not right.  We should not die, and I trust someday in the future we will not.  In the meantime something is terribly wrong.