Et In Arcadia Ego

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Not counting suicidal thoughts, how often do you think about your own death? Are you morbid? How well are you coping with mortality?

― Tom, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Apologies in advance to anyone who thinks this is an offensive subject for an ILE thread. Flippancy is not intented, I find the question interesting is all.

― Tom, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I had a run of imagining myself on my deathbed recently. It was triggered by visiting an old relative who was on his, whacked on morphine. I thought about what it must be like to be lying there when all these relatives you haven't seen in ages start showing up to say hello to you. You probably know you are dying then (if they haven't already told you, or if you aren't too whacked on drugs to realise it).

I would like to think I could face that kind of death calmly.

― DV, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's not a morbid question at all.

I think about everything related to death -- except the act of dying. I worry about colon cancer, terrorism and apocalypse; I worry about securing an enduring fame; I worry about heaven and hell -- but I never try to imagine my death itself. It probably won't be pretty. Lots of gnashing of teeth and beating of breast and all.

― Michael Daddino, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I found out my days were numbered (terminal illnesses and all that), I would make sure my affairs were sorted out straight away and then take matters into my own hands. This is something I think about quite a bit. I would hate to *live* through my own deterioration. This is probably the extent of my thinking about death.

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Often crossed my mind. I hope I die old, happy, surrounded by friends. I regularly fear that I won't.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey what's the title bit from? I have to do (bits) of the Aeneid in Latin right now and there's some guys from Arcadia (Evander and Pallas) but since we didn't do the parts before that I don't know where it is. Is it the same Arcadia?

If I knew I was dying shortly...I'd have a lot more fun.

― Maria, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's the title of a painting by Poussin - two shepherds in beautiful surroundings examining a mausoleum with the said epigram engraved on it. It's a double meaning, I think - "I am also in paradise", i.e. you are in a lovely place here on earth but dont feel bad for me I'm in heaven; but also, even in this earthly paradise there is the presence of death.

― Tom, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

quote = originally from virgil's fifth eclogue, maria

poussin's is most famous use: also the link between anthony blunt and the holy grail!!

― mark s, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I sometimes think about my funeral, but that's more angsty "Would anyone turn up?" crap than anything else.
I AM IMMORTAL AND CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED!

― DG, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think I fear pain more than death. A painless death doesn't sound like a terrible thing. I've always thought hypothermia would be a nice way to go, though with drowning you do get the sudden euphoria just before you snuff it.

― xwerxes, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think about it quite a lot. In a peculiar sort of way I am looking forward to it. This is to do with the advantages of not existing - ie not having to engage with anything. Of course I am not looking forward to disease or a violent death; just the imagined bliss of simply not existing. I think in some ways it is better to die in obscurity - for one's death to be unknown to anyone apart from relatives and close friends. I don't like the idea of the subject of one's death being something that merits a brief flippant conversation in a pub after work - before the topic moves on to the night's football fixtures - or on a message board (I always think this when I see Evening Standard hoardings announcing a fresh celebrity death - the most recent one was Spike Milligan).

― David, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mainly think about it when I see old grannies...the whole, "I am GOING to be that old one day (with a short, white curly afro!)!" thing. Will I be so off my rocker that I won't really understand anything? Sometimes I think about what would be in the papers the next day. It's not morbid or suicidally-driven desire at all, just a basic, human desire to know what happens after...

― Evangeline, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The older I become, the less I think about it. Or rather the more at ease I am with it. When I was a teenager I got into these periods in which I would think about it constantly.

― nathalie, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh. I thought this thread was going to be about Nick Rhodes.

― Edna Welthorpe, Mrs, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think I can be a bit morbid sometimes, but thats a byproduct of being slightly neurotic and a hyponchondriac, it's usually dealt with a "don't be silly, you're fine". But, as for my own mortality, I don't worry about that, "love the life you have" and all that stuff.

― jel --, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought this thread was going to be about my marvellous employer.

― Emma, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey up.

I think about my own death a wee bit, mainly in a kind of hope-I'm- living-in-a-lighthouse-supported-by-the-sales-of-my-novels-and- surrounded-by-hundreds-of-beautiful-and-terrible-grandchildren sort of way. I think more about my parents' mortality, what with them both at retirement age and all.

But since yesterday when I watched them cutting up a bowel tumour on the Anatomists I have thought a great deal about bowel cancer. Colonic irrigation doesn't seem like a bad idea now...

― misterjones, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

don't think about it. ever. too much fun to be had

― Ronan, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought this thread was going to be about eggs.

― N., Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think i might be morbid. my first ever erotic fantasy was at the age of seven and featured two boys from my class (one that i liked, one that i hated). i would lie in a casket in a morgue full of coffins and they would peer into each one and finally arrive at mine and pick me as the finest corpse.

i was going to say that it was a morbid interpretation of Sleeping Beauty, but really it's a fairly literal translation. my mind has been polluted by faerie stories.

i've found myself thinking increasingly about death recently. a friend of mine once read my tarot cards and said that i'd die when i was middle-aged. a death test on thespark.com gave me something similar (perhaps not entirely trustworthy) and diagnosis, cancer. i've been smoking a lot more than just sporadically lately and it worries me, but not enough as yet to fight the allure of pint+fag. sitting on the tube recently, i was checking my hair in the reflection of the glass opposite, and i realised that my head was placed perfectly in the centre of the No Smoking sign. it seemed like a portent of doom, somehow. dietwise, i'm a prime candidate. the reason i've been worrying about this today is an article in today's G2 about a man with cancer of the skull and then, poor old Harold Pinter last week.

people say that they don't want to die old and withered, but the only other option is to die young before they've lived out their potential. i quite like the idea of being old.

i thought this thread was going to be about arcadia's finest employee, ms. emma hamilton, getting too big for her bra-size. ego-wise, not boob-wise, you understand.

― nickie, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Arrghh! Don't mention my full name + the company name as it will get me in a world of googling trouble!

― Emma, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oops, i'm sorry

― nickie, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Too late. I have been sacked. Goodbye glamorous & exotic lifestyle....

― Emma, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i can provide you with more glamour and exotica than They can provide. come work for me. i'll provide a samples sale from my very own wardrobe at the end of every week, just to keep you in the manner that you're accustomed to.

of course, that won't be enough to get rid of the guilt. i am truly stoopid.

― nickie, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"emma hamilton" + arcadia on Google currently produces the 'research report classic' 'Emma Hamilton and her "Attitudes": Mimesis and Museum in Motion' at the top, followed by this:

My name is Emma Hamilton and I work for Arcadia Group which is a company in the UK. Comprende? -- Emma

I fear the game has been up for some time.

― N., Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes but that was ages ago and I have since mended my errant ways. However now thanks to you bastards I am back in trouble again.

Luckily I am leaving the country on Saturday. I have 155 euros in my bag. Wish me luck.

― Emma, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I wish this thread was about Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

― rosemary, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

sometimes i do think abt death. my own as well as others close to me. what would be like when x goes? how would i cope? I think its natural to do that and its not morbid at all.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 8 June 2003 13:05 (twenty-two years ago)

how often do you think about your own death?

at least once a day.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 June 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

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