#existentialism help

This is a phrase that gets tossed around here in my tags, and on posts, but what does it mean?

It is meant literally.

Stardust, when a star goes supernova and explodes, provides the basic elements in the human body – oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium, to be precise on what an exploding provides. The materials we are made of, came from a supernova – perhaps even several supernovas.

The universe as we know it, is estimated to be about 14 billion years old. This isn’t the age of Earth – Earth is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years old. That puts it into some perspective, doesn’t it?

Earth needed stars to go supernova to bring itself together. Now, I don’t have all the answers to why our universe even exists, or how stars even came into being – I just know that they did, and their deaths brought about other life. Our life, to be precise.

Science posits that when things began, only the lightest elements such as hydrogen and helium were in existence. These gases came together, and began to combust with their interactions together in space. These nuclear reactions began to create more elements, and they supposedly did so quickly, as the stars back then were estimated to be much larger than our sun, and larger stars burn through energy and fuel quicker.

Thus, putting out new elements quicker, and beginning the interactions of these new elements, into new forms as they come together, and explode together, leading to planets, and then, life.

It’s a simplistic way of explaining it.

Yet it’s fascinating.

I know stars do not have sentience, but imagine being a star, and knowing your death will create life for hundreds upon hundreds of differing creatures! Imagine knowing you will be part of a planet!

Obviously, stars didn’t know this. Stars don’t have to deal with death anxiety and rationalize their death as something great. They just combust.

We humans don’t have the luxury to just combust and never think about death and what it means, but we do have the ability to recognize that we, too, will give life to so much more with our death. Some of us will even give life through our life, by having children. Others of us will care for life, in the forms of pets, adopted children, elderly friends and family, or our communities.

Yet from our bodies, we can still help create life.

It seems majestic when a star does it – a grand explosion that spews elements out in all directions.

Why can we not translate that majesty to our own deaths? Sure, we’re not spewing elements everywhere, but some of us will have the elements seep into the ground and feed an area. Others will become ashes, and will scatter elements to the wind! Still more will be food for fishes, and carried about through currents and waves.

Not someone in their 40s, or 30s.

Someone in their 70s, 80s, 90s.

I’ve noticed there is a significant lack of older people to look up to in the world, and in the media we consume. We hear about the “Top 40 under 40”, and things of that nature, so much idealizing youth, that we don’t think about how life can be spent when we’re older, or how much can still be accomplished.

I try to share information on that, and people, on this blog to help deal with the fear of aging that sometimes goes hand-in-hand with the fear of death. We don’t know what’s possible, we don’t know who to look up to, because when we think of aging, we think of all that we lose. Our skin loses it’s elasticity, our bones become more brittle, we’re more susceptible to injury and disease, and of course, that much closer to death.

But people do live to 100!

From 70, that’s still 30 more years. I’ve only lived 31, and 18 of those years were of questionable autonomy, 24 of them in school. Imagine 30 years without school, and possibly (hopefully) retired! It’s true, I may suffer during this time from a disease, and I can’t predict that. I cannot even predict if I will live to 70, but when I was 5, that didn’t stop me from dreaming of what adult life would look like.

Why should we not dream of what old age may look like?

So this is my challenge to you: find yourself a role model, living or dead, who’s old.

Who do I pick?

Comfort Food

Taking a “mental health day”

Napping and/or Sleeping In

Binge-Watching Comfort Shows/Reading a Comfort Book/Listening to a Comfort Podcast/Comfort Music/Comfort Video Games/Etc.

Long Baths

Venting

Reflecting on the Good

Meditation

Taking a Walk Outside or Hitting a Treadmill

Turning away from Social Media

Lighting a scented candle

Giving Gifts

Crying/Screaming/Emotional Outburst

Breaking Breakables

Playing with and/or Petting a Pet or Animal

Telling Other People You Don’t Want To Interact With Them (Right Now)/Boundary Setting

Taking care of Plants

Journaling

Cleaning

Treating Yourself (non-food)

Every time I googled “emotional self-care”, I got some things like “set boundaries”, “learn to say no”, and “create a support system” – all of which are very good things, but they don’t really fit the quick regulation criteria that I’m going for here.

So, which of these do I personally use? Comfort Food, Mental Health Days, Sleeping In, Comfort Media, Venting, Reflecting on the Good, Meditation, Hitting a Treadmill, Scented Candle, Giving Gifts, Crying, Animals, Boundary Setting, Cleaning, and Treating Myself.

I’d take care of plants but right now I don’t have a good space for plants.

I’ll look at comfort food last, because I have a list of food.

Mental Health Days, I usually try to schedule ahead of time, around days or times I know are going to be hectic. I know that after a convention, for example, I need “cooldown days”, so usually I will take the following Monday-Wednesday off from work to cooldown from the convention.

If I don’t know ahead of time, I do feel comfortable enough to call in sick, but I vastly prefer being able to plan it, simply because of who I am as a person. It is sometimes a necessity. Sometimes there is just too much going on, and I need to step away from everything. Usually on these days, I will sleep in, or sleep for most of the day, with the promise to go back to normal tomorrow – and that is how it should be.

These are tricks to put you back in line in caring for yourself! To get you back to normal!

Now, most weekends I do sleep in a little. I wake up every day at 6am, so on weekends, I will absolutely let myself sleep in to like, 9-11. It’s a good thing I have this blog on a schedule.

Binge-Consuming Comfort Media: I do not consider this the same as observing New Media, because often for me that is a Personal Self Care, and not necessarily Emotional Self Care. It can be, but more often than not, it gets my thinking fired up and engages me in a wholly different fashion. For example, I consider playing Final Fantasy XII to be a “comfort game”, but I will not consider playing Elden Ring for the first time to be “comfort”, so much as Personal, because the former I have already done, while the latter is something new and is creating new experiences for me. One regulates my emotions, the other does not do so in a foreseeable fashion. In new games, I do not know the experiences I will have, whereas with old games, I can predict them.

I will usually use Binge-Consuming Media in downtime that I have nothing else to fill, but do not have the energy to try something new right then (usually with the promise that I will return to new things in the near future, usually the following day when this happens on a weekend, or the next weekend if this happens on Sunday). Binge-Consuming Media also tends to occur normally on Weekday Evenings, as I tend to lack any desire for new media after work. It thus helps me to stay in a calm mood throughout the night, and prepares me for the next day of work by maintaining mood, rather than changing it.

Venting has to be done with care; I have friends I can vent to, but the vast majority of them only end up aggravating me more when I vent to them. Venting is something I tend to reserve for after I’ve figured out what I’m going to do, and I just need someone else to know my pain, because very rarely are people actually able to give me decent advice. Yet, venting is still useful because it lets me finally express it, and lets other people into my life, which is healing, and allows me to move forward without feeling like I’m keeping a secret.

Akin to that, reflecting on the good is a bit more of a solitary action, but it’s useful to remember that a “bad day” isn’t a bad life. To think of the people who love me, to think of the good things that did happen, even amidst the bad, and to remember there are more good things to come. After a particularly bad day at work, remembering good things, good phone calls with customers, and just good people, is always helpful, and can prepare me to continue through the rest of the day.

Meditation is something I try to do every day, and I do feel that it helps me focus on the moment, as well as helps me work through my thoughts when I’m not meditating.

Back when gyms were safe, hitting the treadmill was great for days I just couldn’t fucking convince myself to do my weight training. It still got me in the gym, it still got me exercising, and it helped me beat out the anger while listening to a podcast or music. I felt like I could breathe. I miss this, a lot, and I look forward to being able to return to this, or getting the “Just Dance” games for my home so I can do a similar thing, without going to the gym. I was then usually able to resume weight lifting the next day – and it kept me from breaking my streak of going to the gym, back in the day.

Aromatherapy is just a thing. I enjoy it, it helps me, and I love candles, haha.

Giving Gifts is also something I like to do. Making other people happy, makes me happy, and this is often a surefire way to do that. It can be as simple as a bit of chocolate, it doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. Of course, I have to make sure I am financial stable enough to do that.

Crying – when I need to. Sometimes I will have to kind of force it, by putting on a movie I know will make me cry, because just bursting into tears from stress without additional stimuli can be hard, but once it’s done, it is so relieving, and it allows my brain to start to function again without feeling as much in a daze.

It’s true I do have pets, and they’re kind of around me everyday, so this is more of a routine one – the animals are a constant source of comfort, but if you don’t have pets, visiting a pet store may be beneficial to give their animals a bit of affection, or going to an animal shelter. Or perhaps watching cute animal videos if those aren’t options.

Boundary Setting is also important. While sometimes, it can be good to help others when you’re going through a thing – I find it helpful sometimes – at other times it is just too much. Being clear on that, and also giving your friend some idea of when to “check in”, is good. It also lets your friend know a bit of a time period, so they know it isn’t a permanent block on conversing. Being open and clear about your situation can only do you good when it comes to your friends – and checking in with them when you’re ready!

Cleaning is oddly enough something I do when I’m preparing for something that is Good. I feel like I must cleanse the area in preparation of the New Good Thing. I will do this when I buy a new gaming console, or a long-awaited game, for instance. It makes things feel fresh and rejuvenated. It lets me walk into the New Thing as if it is a New Thing, and it starts it off on good footing. Some of the anxiety and anticipation of it, is quelled.

Treating Myself, when it’s non-food items, is usually things like clothing for me, or new PJs lately. I will also invest in books I plan to read, one day, eventually, cute Star Wars things, shows and/or movies to watch that are new, or things that generally speaking bring joy into my life. Sometimes emotional regulation, is also about reward. If you’re doing good in your life, you absolutely SHOULD be rewarded for it! Otherwise, why bother with balance and moderation? Why not live a hedonistic lifestyle? That would be far more pleasant if balance and moderation don’t have rewards. Not all emotional regulation is just to stop being sad, it’s also to be vindicated and celebrate good events. Celebrating IS regulating, when it calls for it, obviously. So I’m not encouraging here spending your money on whims because you are sad, but spending it more when you’re happy, and doing good.

And then we get to Comfort Foods. What do I use for comfort foods?

Chipotle Gouda Pasta Salad

Lime-Chipotle Pasta Salad

“Chicken” Fried Steak (Scare quotes because I’m a vegetarian so it’s fake meat)

“Tuna” Salad

Cheesecake, particularly raspberry white chocolate, or turtle.

Ice cream, particularly from Cold Stone, but usually either Rocky Road or Raspberry with Chocolate Chunks. There’s also Love Potion #9 which I have to drive a significant distance for….

Extra Lattes (note the extra – I already have these planned in with my meal plans).

Hot Chocoalte

Potatoes O’Brien and Gravy

The idea behind Comfort Food: Eating tasty food often restores a mood, or at least puts us in a better mindset. They aren’t always the healthiest things, though they aren’t necessarily unhealthy. They have to be done in moderation, as you see I indicate with lattes it’s “extra” lattes that go on the comfort food side. I usually have two decaf lattes a week, one on Wednesday, and one on Friday.

Comfort Foods are for a “limited time”. An extra latte means I don’t get one the following day, or I don’t get one every single day of the week. I take the comfort it offers when it’s needed, and resume my usual drinking habits.

Things like Pasta Salad are for weeks when I need a bit of help, or when I’ve done good, because they’re multiple serving things. So like, my birthday week, eating a pasta is good. Or a week where everything went to hell, and I can’t focus on making something “new” and I just need to eat – but then it’s right back to normality after that week. This is not have pasta for an entire month, this is a way to set intentions, and work on orienting myself back to normal with food I love, and food I can make with my eyes closed.

Single-serving things, like cheesecake or hot chocolate, are usually Reward self-care. Like fuck yeah, I did great, I should give myself a little treat. It encourages my good behavior, and does not become an indulgence. It also ends up “planned”, and so the rest of the meals work around that indulgence so I don’t go overboard with it, either.

Knowing what foods, and what I use them for, helps me to use them when they will be most beneficial for me. Things like “extra lattes” also makes me think: Do I really want to do this now, or wait until the day I’m going to have it? Is there a reason I need it now? What will I do after I have it? How does this impact everything else in the balance?

So these are kind of the “quick trick” emotional self-care tools I use. Obviously, you should try to have a steady way of regulating your emotions, but shit happens. Cars break down, work days suck, friends are angry, people die…we need to have tools to get “back to normal”, or close enough to normal.

And you should also, absolutely, take time to treat yourself in self-care! If you don’t reward yourself, what’s the point in being “balanced”, and not just living a hedonistic lifestyle? That’s why comfort food as rewards is a thing! It’s why you can use these as rewards, if it helps, for doing good!

I don’t personally feel this, but as a former suicidal person, I do understand it from my earlier years in life when I didn’t want to live, but there was also this frustration of not wanting to hurt some of the people around me. Things would have been better if I hadn’t been born, not only to escape the debilitating pain of living, but also to prevent others from suffering the grief at my loss.

Mostly, it was never to have ever known the pain that existence was.

Nowadays, I’m totally okay with the pain of existence and would like it to continue, even facing down non-existence.

Still, I get it.

Never knowing pain, never causing pain to others, never feeling this fear…it would solve a lot of problems. Of course, that would also mean never knowing the highs of life that make you fear its loss. In this way, I find that having the fear is evidence of how much I’m enjoying my life. I wanted to end my life when I had no enjoyment in it, and could see no hope. Now, I see hope – not to be immortal, or to ever escape this fear, but to hopefully have many more years full of experiences.

To live, as much as I can, and enjoy it, as much as I can. That’s going to mean some hiccups that include this fear, when it overcomes me. It’ll include pain, of both the physical and emotional sort. It’ll also include pleasures, of both sorts. I’m not a dualist in thinking, I don’t personally believe we NEED pain to enjoy pleasure, we don’t NEED to be sad to know happiness – but that is how life tends to be, and so I know that working through the hard times are going to mean eventually getting to the good times.

Now that my greatest fear is non-existence, I don’t really have any desire to hasten that. I also don’t wish that I’d never been born. Sure, it means I don’t have the fear…but it also means I don’t have anything.

Getting over that thought can be hard. As a former suicidal individual who failed my attempts, I know that. I can’t tell you when it will get easier. I can only tell you to try and look at the good parts of life and experience, and to know that if you never existed, you wouldn’t know all of these things.

I’ve heard that said many times, but was stricken by it, alongside the thought “complete” and “incomplete” lives.

We would usually assume a person who lives to their 90s has had a “complete” life.

We would assume that someone who lives to only 22, has had an “incomplete” life.

As with so many other age-based expectations, I’m starting to think that this, too, is a harmful thought. We all get a lifetime. We don’t know how long or short that may be. Any life that begins, and ends, by default is a complete life.

At the age of 90, I’m certain there are still going to be plenty of things I want to do. I don’t believe age really “completes” life because I was able to do more, or hit the marks of a traditional life, and enjoy those experiences.

I don’t know how to change the dialogue on it, because I hardly want to start encouraging death, but for those who are dying young, I think there must be some way to learn to tell them they had a complete life, that their life had value, they didn’t “fail” by not aging further, and they will be remembered for the life they led, not for the life they didn’t have.

Of course, that won’t stop us from bringing them forward into experiences they could have had, in our thoughts.

And in situations where a life is ended violently, I can see how it would be hard to call a life “complete” – at any age where it ends in violence, really.

So, I admit, I’m not sure how to help change the language of dying young by disease, or even of dying old by disease, to suggest that a life lived was a complete life, and make it comfortable for all involved.

Obviously, we’re all, always, going to want to do more.

We would all live “incomplete” lives, so long as we have desires.

However, at my own end – if I were to get a terminal diagnosis now, I don’t think I’d want to focus on that. Of course, I’d want to try and quickly knock off a few things on my list, but I’d also want to think about all I have done, not all that I could have done.

That’s likely just going to make me angry…and also upset my loved ones.

I suppose the challenge, or thought process today, is to start considering how to make life seem “complete”, how to change your own internal dialogue on life expectations, and death expectations, so that even though you will die with things undone, you can still find acceptance in the reality that we all die with things undone, and all lives are complete in spite of that.  

I will divide this up over the week into themes, notably Routine Self Care, Emotional Self Care, Physical Self Care, Social Self Care, Personal Self Care, and Practical Self Care. Some of these may bleed into each other, and what I classify as Emotional you may classify as Personal. This is just to help give you an idea of what this kind of thing could look like, to better help you sort out how you may want to make your own lists.

So for day one, I’m going to include what my “Routine” Self Care looks like, which you’ve had a bit of a look at already by seeing how my daily life is.

These are the major points:

Exercise (Physical)

Meal Plan/Follow Meal Plan (Practical)

Shower (Physical)

Go To Work (Practical)

Take Medicine (Physical/Personal/Practical)

Meditate (Emotional)

Partake in Hobbies in downtime (Personal/Emotional)

Take Breaks and Lunches from Work (Practical)

Converse with friends throughout the day (social)

Check in with family (social)

Budgeting (Practical)

Grocery and Food Run (Practical/Social; I know the people now)

General Shopping (Weekly comic run, sometimes other things come up -- Practical/Social)

Obviously, every day varies a little bit, but this is my standard day. Some of you may be wondering, how is Work self-care?

Work is a practical form of self-care because I do not have the finances to live without going to work. It thus makes sure my finances are in order, and allows me to save money to do things that I’d like. It IS self care, because if I stopped doing it, so many parts of my life would fall apart. By going to work, I am caring for myself. Obviously, I would love to win the lottery and never have to work a day in my life again.

I’d also love not to have to take medicine every day that helps with my chronic pain. I’d love not to need to exercise, for that matter, or monitor my diet. I do it, because I care about myself, and these contribute to taking care of myself, and that’s why I’m putting them here.

I also find it’s better to think of work in this light, rather than to see it as negative and adverse to my life. Since I cannot change the entire structure of the society I live in overnight, I can work on how I view it instead. I don’t mean this to be toxic positivity – my work environment is not detrimental to my health.

If yours is, I hope you can find an environment that is healthier for you. I hope you can find something that enriches your life far more than it lessens your life, as I have done with my job.

As you can see, though – my daily self care routines have a bit of everything sprinkled in, from social to physical. I am huge into holistic health, and taking care of all parts of you, so that should be no surprise.

This is my routine on a good day. What I will include in the other days, are “self care” that is not routine, and is usually meant to help with an imbalance in some way. For example, you’ll see here that I have my meal plan mentioned as a practical need – it could also be considered physical for the actual eating of it.

There is a sub-genre of self-care that I consider “comfort food”. Though food itself is a physical need, comfort food helps with an emotional imbalance, and so when I talk about that, it will be under the emotional heading, rather than physical, because it is not addressing a physical need, despite being a physical action. Ordinarily, food is addressing a physical need, and that is where it belongs in normal circumstances.

In abnormal circumstances, food may bleed into other categories based on use.

Acknowledging this is a good step to understanding how you use things, and thus, when to use things. That’s what we’ll see in the non-routine things.

Taking care of yourself in a routine fashion is self-care, and as you can see, not all of it is lying around eating bon-bons. Good self-care treats all of you, and that may mean doing things that are hard, or even undesirable, at times, for the overall health. Do I want to exercise every day? No. Do I enjoy the results of exercising over the results of not exercising? Fuck yes.

I was reminded of this in talking with my mother while out for my birthday, and somehow or other it came into conversation that “she could be a tree” when she passes on. Her discomfort with the thought of dying was visible, and she expressed that she really didn’t want to talk about it, or think about it.

I can’t really blame her. I was surprised that she had nothing set up, as we both use the same advisor, and he has me set up with plenty of things for various circumstances (my will, admittedly, needs updating; I have this planned for the beginning of April). On pressing a little, she did agree that she’d talk to him – next year – about these things and get it set up.

Still, it reminds me how much easier things have become for me, in confronting things, rather than avoiding. I can look into what I may want for my body after death. I can also look into new sciences as they come about, relating to life, death, and medical news and not worry. I can visit the doctor with confidence, unlike my mother, who just doesn’t want to hear it.

“Don’t tell me I’m dying. Tell me everything’s fine and get me another cup of coffee.”

It’s an amusing quote, really, even if it’s also a bit, well, sad.

I worry about her as she gets older. I can’t help but to worry about her, given her avoidance attitude and lack of desire to know what’s wrong, to possibly nip something small in the butt before it gets larger.

It’s why I bring up avoidance here: it’s something I witness close to me, and I think many of us would be better not to practice it. There are many small things that can be fixed, before they become a problem, if we become aware of them. There are things we can do to make life easier for our loved ones, when we pass on. My brother and I have one hell of a problem to deal with when my mom dies, if she doesn’t get things situated.

Of course, I also have a problem if I don’t get my own will in order, but everything else is fine.

Try putting yourself in the shoes of your loved ones; try to imagine them dealing with what you currently have set up. Is it going to be a headache for them? Is there a way you can make it less of a headache?

Consider working towards that, bit by bit.

Find someone who can help you, if you need it. I’m not saying this is easy or comfortable to approach. You can do just the bare minimum, too.

Generally speaking, it would be good to know what you’d like to have happen to your body, and have the funds for it (through life insurance or other means). It would be good to know how you’d like your assets divided, a will helps, but annuities and other things may have their own rules and won’t be able to abide by a will – consider checking in on those, if you have them. Designate the person you want in charge of things after death, as well – and consider your social media accounts in that. Make these documents easy to find, as well.

Avoidance is only going to hurt those you love, in the end, with all the stress from the fallout. Do what you can now, for the love you bear them.  

Centuries ago, we couldn’t do a heart transplant.

Now, I have a friend recovering from one (and let me tell you, that was worrisome – she’s all right at the time of my writing this, in the hospital to continue lowering her immune response so the heart isn’t destroyed).

With dreams of extending life, we’re going to keep conquering the ailments of mortality, and improve our lives, so I want that to continue, even if immortality is a fantasy – life extension may not be, though I don’t know how far that could go for the average person.

I wanted to touch on the fantasy bit of this again, in the immortal creatures we’ve created, such as Vampires, Tithonus, denizens of the Island of Immortals from Gulliver’s Travels, Elves, and plenty of others.

Of these, perhaps only Elves are put into a positive light with regards to immortality, yet even JRR Tolkien’s elves eventually go off to another place, apart from the rest of Middle Earth. I am not certain if elves of other mythos (like DnD) are similarly immortal, or just long-lived. I know in DnD it is simple longevity, rather than actual immortality.

Vampires are often viewed as former humans who are changed into vampires, where they acquire bloodlust, with the boon of being able to live forever. The rules regarding them vary across mythologies, but those two seem to be the most constant aspects. Many of those who do live for a while, however, tend to go insane. They lose their sense of morality, the changes of the world cause immense stress, their loved ones die, on and on in a sense of endless tragedy.

Tithonus is an individual figure, the love of Eos/Dawn in Greek Mythology. She requests that he be immortal, but forgets to ask for eternal youth…so he ages, and ages, until he becomes a cicada, begging for death and unable to have it.

The immortals in Gulliver’s Travels are another example of those who are immune from aging death, but still face the hardships of change. Many of them will still suffer bodily ailments or mental decay, so it’s not pictured as a good thing.

In fact, many examples of immortality are often described as a curse, like in Tuck Everlasting, which is just a family that happened upon some water.

I like to think that the idea of making immortal creatures miserable is to try and get humanity okay with the thought of dying, one day. Even if we can’t truly imagine how immortality would be, we do try, and in doing so, we tend to portray it as miserable rather than grand.

The exclusions from this are those things which have always been immortal, like Gods, Goddesses, and Elves. Although Elves do clearly still suffer, and can die of wounds, Gods and Goddesses often cannot die at all, and likely can’t understand mortality since it is in their nature to live forever. Sidenote, this is not true of ALL gods across all Pantheons, as Norse deities absolutely do die, and as we know of Indra, it’s also expected that even Hindu gods will be reborn.

Regardless – when it comes to humans who find a way to live forever, they’re not prepared for it, and it becomes a miserable ordeal.

If reading about immortals is useful, and how miserable they are, then consider looking into fiction about such things! There’s plenty of vampire novels, movies, and other forms of media out there. If vampires aren’t your style, there are elves, Gulliver’s Travels, Tuck Everlasting, and a host of other options to look at, to help quell your desire for immortality.