Wherein we discuss existential crises

Everything else
1

I lost a casual friend last week. I’d only met her in person twice, but we’re both connected with about 100 mutual friends in the improv community, and we’d stayed Facebook friends from our initial meeting. She was just a wonderful, kind, generous person. She did performance improv, but more often she did tech for improv and theater. And if you’ve ever done stage performance, you know attentive, caring techs can make an amazing difference in the quality of a show, making your show soo much better by choosing the right music and lighting cues at the right moment. And the people on stage appreciate it, but the audience generally has no clue. There’s something about people who give their all to make others succeed that’s just wonderful.

That was my friend Cortney. Who died in her sleep last week. I don’t know how old she was, but it was somewhere in her 30s. Way too fucking young for anyone. But especially for someone who was so supportive, so talented, and so focused on making others succeed.

I’ve lost three friends in the past couple of years who died in their sleep. All wonderful, generous people who cared far more about making those around them happy and comfortable and successful than they did about themselves. Another friend, who gave every free moment to supporting local theater and school productions, who passed away while visiting family in New Zealand. All of these people were so selfless, and had such impact on people in the moments they were with them.

I wish I was religious. I wish I had even a small thought there was a conscious existence after we pass. That I would see these wonderful people again, that they would have a reward for the the awesome lives they lived.

But I’m not, and I think the time we have is the time we need to make the most of. Because when we’re done, we’ll be remembered and revered for a while, like I remember Cortney. She made an impact, and I’ll always remember her. But at some point in the next 42 years (I’ve always been shooting for 100) I’ll be gone. And hopefully I’ll have some positive, lasting impact on others and people will remember me. For a brief moment. But in the long run? Does anyone matter? A very few who make dramatic impacts on society, who write works that last generations. But otherwise, it’s the moment. Because after that, we’re gone, and it’s the next generation’s moments. That will, too, eventually fade.

I’m rambling, because I’m really sad. I have great joy in my life — I have a kid who I’m trying to get launched onto a successful trajectory, but whatever he does I know he’s a great person who will bring happiness to others. I have a great partner. I have just freaking adorable cats. The “moment” is great.

But the past few weeks have just really driven how important the “moment” is. Because in the long run, give or take the ML Kings, Mandelas, Armstrongs, Teslas, Hemingways, and Einsteins we’re all just fading blips.

So yeah, I’ve heard the term “existential crisis” my whole life. But I was more than a half-century old when I really understood it.

2

It’s totally normal to feel how you feel given all that’s happened to you of late. You’ll get through it and gain perspective once enough time has passed, but I’d say for now it’s okay to feel this way for a little while, as long as you don’t wallow in it.

We’re here for you regardless.

Gah, in all that I forgot to say my condolences regarding your friend.

3

Sorry to hear about your friend, who was taken too early. We feel the loss of the bright and cheerful souls among the hardest and I share your take that we should treasure each moment with our friends as much as we can, and bring joy to their lives as much as they bring joy to ours.

4

Sorry to hear about your friends… yeah, this whole thing hurts. And sometimes it’s really hard to come to terms with the fact that we live in an uncaring and meaningless universe, because we care, and we ascribe meaning to things.

Yeah, all our accomplishments will one day be gone. At some point, none of us will be remembered, no matter how big of an impact we had, because we’re just flickers in a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. But while we’re here, we can interact with others and enrich their lives, provide some comfort and care and meaning in a universe that ultimately doesn’t know any of those things. We are the universe’s conscience. Life as such can be a fever dream, and often it is painful, but it is just as often as beautiful as anything can be.

5

Sorry about your friends.

I think I’ve made my peace with eternity, all of us exist for a blip, and then go back non existence for the rest of all time. The species will follow, and eventually, the Universe too, one way or another, if our current understanding of the Universe is true.

6

I think about this kind of stuff on occasion. Perhaps way too much to be healthy. I think about getting old, and the thing that bothers me most is the loss of other people. Sure becoming feeble and other health problems are a concern, but the longer you live, the more of the world you knew will disappear.

I really do not like this aspect of living longer. Recently RichardVR died. In the next few decades this list of QT3 members who are no longer with us will grow quite large. The forum may continue, but it will be different people, not the people who have been around since the first few years the site went live.

Also actors or any other famous person you know of will die. For me Harrison ford has special meaning. Not because I am some super fan or anything, but because I was a kid in a movie theater and saw the original opening of star wars. Han Solo was so young. Now looking at Harrison ford now, he looks so old. He is just some kind of benchmark, a line that symbolizes the world I grew up in and kind of how that world will officially be dead when he dies. However, I do realize this world is pretty much dead already. It is very depressing.

7

I’m very sorry to hear about the passing of not just this friend, but the others you mentioned as well.

I think we all pass these hurdles in life where we wonder, “why,” or, “why me,” or, “what’s the point?” Like getting that small glimpse from outside of our rat race cage that yes, we’re all here in a rat race.

I had a moment similar to you when my mother passed. My father had passed several years earlier but within a short period of time I lost both of my mothers parents, and then my mother. That left me and my two sisters but it was at the realization that there is no more people in my direct family older than me. I’m 56. That’s … it’s a hard thing knowing and thinking about the fact I can’t check my memories with someone else who will remember things about when I was young. Nor what really happened when my parents did something in the past, etc. There is no more history beyond what I know now. I don’t know why this bothered me but it didn’t happen until about 2 years after my mother passed. I had pulled out some pictures to show my wife and she simply asked me a question about where the young me in that picture was at the time. I don’t remember. And now will most likely never know.

The next time I felt similarly was about 4 years ago. Similar to you, Editer, I had a friend pass in their sleep. None of his friends or family expected it. So torn up was everyone after it happened that his mother, who had come down from another state to go through his home effects, had an anxiety attack and died that day from a heart attack, right there in my friends house. Two of the cornerstones of that family, gone within 3 days of each other. The funeral services were a wreck. Nobody could hold it together. I’ve never felt more sad and yet mad at life. Why did that have to happen?

I would like to say, Editer, that even with beliefs in something after life, there isn’t anything that prevents these thoughts. We generally float along in the boat of life without thought towards how fleeting it can be. At least here on this forum, most of us are relatively safe and find happiness in our lives. But it’s when we realize the fleetingness of it, or how insignificant we are, that we get flooded with the, “why,” questions. It’s okay. And if nothing else, the fact that all of us are here on a gaming forum and saying similar things about similar thoughts … it happens to most everyone.

I’m again sorry about your friends. I hope you feel better and know we are here for you.

8

In Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel, he talks about losing his brother in childhood:

We can believe in the nothingness of life, we can believe in the nothingness of death and of life after death—but who can believe in the nothingness of Ben?

I think that’s the feeling we have when someone leaves this life after making an impression on us. Where does their them go? How could it just be in that body or that brain when it stops working?

I’m sorry for the loss of your friends, Editer. They do sound wonderful. (I’ve known a lot of great grown-up theater kids, too.) I hope after the grief there’s some comfort to be found.

9

Just a lot of unjust loss in a short time — and that’s only going to get worse as I age, I remember my grandparents having a segment of our weekly call where they let me know which of their friends that I’d met had died recently.

But I have a good life, surrounded by good people, and a great kid and family. I’m lucky, my “moments” are mostly good.

Just makes me realize that prioritizing the potentially positive moments is important, because I could be around for another 42 years, or another 42 minutes.

My mood was significantly brighter this morning when Athena greeted me. She was very glad I was awake and went into purr/coo overdrive as I was petting her. Reminded me that the little moments like that are a significant part of everyday joy.

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10

I guess as with so many things, I defer to Harlan Ellison: for a brief time, I was here; and for a brief time, I mattered. I think about the people who towered over my life and are no longer around to guide me. It’s my duty, I suppose, to remember them, to keep their fire burning a little longer as best I can. It bothers me a little that my kids don’t remember my grandfather, who was such a large presence in my life. It’s not their fault of course, he died when they were quite little. But I try to tell them about him, how he guided me, things we did together. It’s all I’ve got really, and probably serves more comfort to me than to them. But I remember him, and I think that still matters. Someday the people that remember him will be gone too, but hopefully we’ve passed along some integral piece of wisdom and heart to those whose lives we influence. And hopefully that matters too.

11

This is the most painful part of my parents’ early deaths. My mom died when I was in college and never got to see my kids (and vice versa). Imagining a world without the lung cancer, where they could spend whole days together, getting to know each other, even just knowing she’s around and loves them… I almost can’t handle it. My dad died when most of the kids were tiny. Only my oldest remembers trips to the local diner for milkshakes with him when they were 3 or 4. I miss them, but it’s way worse knowing that my kids can’t really miss them because they never met them.

12

It crushes me that my mother, who died almost 10 years ago, never got to meet my son. She had a fairly bumpy last two decades of her life after my parents divorced, and I know that she wanted a grandchild more than anything in this world. When I think of how much joy her grandson would have brought her, and vice versa, it breaks my heart. I am having trouble even typing this post.