Ideas & Opinions Does 50/50 work for you?

[Winslow]

Does 50/50 work for you? By that, what I mean is having an equal desire to both live and die? Because if you think of only living, then let's suppose you find suddenly one day that your doctor is giving you only Six months to live? That is, a terminal illness. I know of cases of people who suddenly find that they have only 6 months to live. It makes them so depressed that they become drug addicts. In one case I remember a lady who with terminal illness who even got violent and violently assaulted innocent people because she resented that they are not terminal.
My point is that if she had the 50/50 type desire for both life and death, then she would have accepted her imminent death, if you see what I mean.

While it's good to love our life, it's equally good and safer to love death, so 50/50. This is how I deal with my emotions. So I wonder if any of you others have the same attitude that keeps you safe?

 

[AvidFan]

Interesting question. I've also heard a lot though, of people who are given a terminal diagnosis and it makes life much simpler for them. There is a sense of acceptance and peace, every day counts, the small things become more meaningful, there is no stress about the usual everyday things which fade into insignificance and people adapt to the situation remarkably well. It's almost like it's a relief. I've also heard of people who go into remission and are given the all clear, who end up getting really stressed by the small things again.

Freud would have said we do have competing desires to live and die - eros and thanatos, the life drive and the death drive, I suppose the ideal is that they're somehow balanced, which would make sense why this works for you! Some people probably cling to life far too much, see it as a failure to get sick, are in complete denial about mortality, hence the depression and anger you mention - while some people who are not sick become suicidal and more inclined towards death. So both could be seen as out of balance in some way.

I think putting the two above together, I find that while I do like my life most of the time, and love bits of it, I also have a lot of struggles in my life, things that are complicated and uncertain and hard work. I counter the theme of fear of death/illness with the fact that all of my other worries would be over. So I guess I do try to ride the middle ground between the desire to live and the desire to die, though it probably fluctuates a lot - 40/60 or 60/40 some days, etc.

 

[Winslow]

Interesting question. I've also heard a lot though, of people who are given a terminal diagnosis and it makes life much simpler for them. There is a sense of acceptance and peace, every day counts, the small things become more meaningful, there is no stress about the usual everyday things which fade into insignificance and people adapt to the situation remarkably well. It's almost like it's a relief. I've also heard of people who go into remission and are given the all clear, who end up getting really stressed by the small things again.

Freud would have said we do have competing desires to live and die - eros and thanatos, the life drive and the death drive, I suppose the ideal is that they're somehow balanced, which would make sense why this works for you! Some people probably cling to life far too much, see it as a failure to get sick, are in complete denial about mortality, hence the depression and anger you mention - while some people who are not sick become suicidal and more inclined towards death. So both could be seen as out of balance in some way.

I think putting the two above together, I find that while I do like my life most of the time, and love bits of it, I also have a lot of struggles in my life, things that are complicated and uncertain and hard work. I counter the theme of fear of death/illness with the fact that all of my other worries would be over. So I guess I do try to ride the middle ground between the desire to live and the desire to die, though it probably fluctuates a lot - 40/60 or 60/40 some days, etc.

Yes, fluctuation, I understand exactly what you mean about the emotional fluctuation--40/60 or 60/40. I have to be very careful when the pendulum tips a bit too much into the death part of the scale, that I have to restore balance quickly before the bad side snowballs.