I didn't say that nothing happens, I said whatever people's beliefs, death is different from life, but we often struggle to think beyond our physical form.
Wanting our ashes scattered somewhere important to us in life implies we'll have a life awareness of it in death. I'm not saying that consciousness can't exist outside of physical form, but I think we can say with some degree of certainty that one way, or another, consciousness, awareness, likes and dislikes, won't be the same when we're dead.
I like that a lot.
It's sensible, pragmatic and I can't argue with it.
So why do we heed last wishes? Are we extending someone's life when we do something they asked for after their death, or is it rooted in superstition and long-forgotten lore?
People seem to process some aspects of post-life as if we have the same thoughts, feelings and awareness in death as we do in life. Whether you're religious, spiritual, or believe you simply cease to exist, that's probably not the case.
That's an interesting perspective, too, Didi. Thanks.
In the videos I've been watching I'd say the strength of the bond and/or the level of distress kinda has the opposite effect: surviving family members badly want answers and their loved ones to come home, regardless of an expressed 'wish' not to be found.
How do we balance dying wishes against the very understandable emotional needs of the living?
I think perhaps it would take a fairly unique mindset to accept that a loved one ended their life and vanished on their own terms and leave it at that.
Does it also depend upon viewing suicide as a mental health behaviour versus a self-euthanasia in different circumstances? Are we more likely to override dying wishes if we perceive them as irrational?
Why do people express a desire not to be found? Is it to protect loved ones from emotional, or financial stress? Both of those can backfire with unanswered questions, frozen assets and a lack of finality.
Am I right in thinking that an executor is legally obliged to follow other dying wishes specified in a Will, such as passing on the the deceased's estate?
I was also asking the questions from a personal, rather than a legal perspective. I'm interested in people's philosophical, cultural, or moral opinions and perhaps I didn't make that clear enough.
I have a vague memory of reading Neville Shute's A Town Like Alice (I think it was that novel) at the age of thirteen, where the protagnist survives simply because his would-be executioners can't fulfil his dying wish of a cold beer. It may not be based in reality, but it is a reference to dying wishes being sancrosanct within cultural practise.
It's certainly not unusual to respect and place importance upon dying wishes, but how far do we take that obligation and why?
I've been watching Adventures With Purpose documentaries on Youtube.
They're a waterway sonar search and recovery dive team. I think they started salvaging with an environmental and 'treasure' mindset, but the organisation evolved after the profound impact of solving a missing person cold case by chance.
They self-fund through subscriptions, membership, merchandise, donations and voluntary/community teamwork. Families of missing persons aren't charged for their services and other recovery teams have developed around the growing movement.
The teams' focus is on searching bodies of water for people who go missing with their vehicles, either by accident, or suicide. A recurring theme in the back-stories is the missing person at some point mentioning that they know how to 'disappear' so they will never be found.
Does that 'never be found' element constitute a dying wish?
Do surviving family and friends have the right to search for answers and their loved one's remains if the intention was never to be found? Clearly, when people vanish it has a huge impact, creating a traumatic grieving process for those left behind, further complicated by a suspicion of suicidal intent.
What obligation do the livng have to fulfil someone's dying wishes (of any kind) and why?
My point was, by the time you can be non-transactional, etc. with your trust and love, you have gone past the pragmatic stage of a relationship which is inherently transactional, etc...unless you think you can have that kind of relationship with anyone on the planet regardless of their traits and behaviours.
Trust is so interactive and multi-dimensional, I can't view it as a single entity.
I've been trying to theoretically assess how open, or closed I am with my trust and love and have found it's too complicated to express.
I suppose I can say I'm pretty laid back with day to day interactions, but that's more to do with not judging people for things in their life that don't directly affect me, or don't affect me for very long.
I get more picky about letting people in closer, but I quite like solitude, so I can afford to be.
Given I'm not very well at the moment, I have to factor in the impact I could have on others. That's an issue of not trusting myself at the moment. Ask me again in six months because it could all be dfferent again.
One of the paradigm shifts we've seen in the UK as a result of the pandemic is a greater acceptance of the role of wellness.
The impact of isolation, hardship and loss has to addressed without shame. More people understand that experiencing grief (in all it's forms) isn't a personal failing: we can be angry about that, but also grow and change our culture from it.
There's a definite overlap between having kids and pets: you're responsible for another life, but also interact in on a symbiotic level. You know you're only going to share life with them for a season before they move on.
Certainly, my grandchildren have an element of viewing my granddogs like siblings. They're very much a part of team kid, rather than team parent.
One Christmas when my daughter was small and I was struggling for cash, I said I wasn't going to get anythng for the dogs that year. My daughter told me in no uncertain terms she wasn't going to open a single present unless the dogs had something, too. I had to miss a few meals over that bond.
I content myself with two granddogs, a neighbour's scabby cat who has decided that I'm his property and any creaure I can get near enough to make friends with.
I met a pair of 5 month old miniature Dachshunds the other day who squeaked like guinea pigs. I was suspicious.
I don't keep tabs on my protein intake, or anything else for that matter.
You don't need as much protein as the middle of the last century would have us believe and lots of foods (pulses, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, grains, psuedo-grains, potatoes) have protein in them.
My GP told me about a third of people in Wales are B12 deficient, but I'm not one of them despite eating a plant-based diet and not taking supplements. That's probably from fortified plant milk in my tea.
I'm having a box of organic veg delivered once a fortnight at the moment. Here, there are strict standards with respect to soil contamination. I don't need to buy much else besides and the veg boxes cost me £10-12 per week.
I agree, it can be expensive trying to be squeaky clean, but seeking out as many ways as possible is an option.
Is it true that some people are entirely pessimistc, or entirely optimstic?
Perhaps each of us experience both pessimistic and optimistic perspectives at different times, as well as neither, or both at the same time.
Does that mean that someone's religion/spirituality no longer exists if they have a bleak moment, and it suddenly exists again if that bleakness passes?
It may appear that way, but then again, how could we know the entirety of someone else's belief system, or their own personal interpretation of a particular belief system?
From reading posts I'd say people are generally true to their beliefs, but maybe I focussed on different things during my childhood religious education. We all pick and choose because we all interpret and reason from our own value framework.
As perplexing as it is when someone has a different religious/spiritual perspective from that which we hold true, do we have the right to judge the whole person because their life experience and opinions are different from our own? That judgement in tself could also be non-true to a belief system, but we all have times where we lack self-awareness, or fail to fully assimilate an idea we hold true.
Looking at that list, I'm wondering if the plant kitchen a work surface is next to where the pigs in blankets are made, or the plant pioneers the folk who've just discovered and added carrots to their diet of veal.
All these names imply a vegan ethos, but appear to be hedging their litigation bets. If you decimate the environment with intensive soya farming and several species become extinct, or slip in a bit of trace animal fat, a product can still be based on plant materials without entirely being of plant origin, or fitting the vegan tenets.
It's perhaps distancing marketing in more ways than one.
I asked the plant-based versus vegan question earlier.
It could be to distinguish diet from the ethos of veganism: anyone can eat a plant-based meal, or entirely plant-based diet; not everyone necessarily embraces the vegen lifestyle to the extreme in all areas of their life.
Plant-based food labelling may not be the same as vegan, for example if it's made in a factory where a product may be cross-contaminated with trace animal products. When a product label suggests 'may contain traces of' there is an upper legal limit before the quantity has to be stated in the ingredients list.
It could be an promotional ploy to distance plant-based food from the prejudices surrounding veganism, the kind the op is trying to play with his (assuming he is a he) 'vegan police' trolling behaviour.
I tend to refer to my diet as plant-based rather than my lifestyle as vegan because I have to live in this world and within my means. I also deviate from veganism in my ethics because I'd view using the wool from a pet sheep, or eggs/manure from pet fowl as a symbiotic, rather than exploitative relationship.
I'm not sure 'plant-based' can be completely dismissed as a catchy new way of saying 'vegan' as it potentially has positive, as well as negative implications.
As for processed food, I'm not a purist there either. I've yet to make my own plant-based milks and I eat the occasional veggie sausage. Bear in mind, anything we purchase that isn't a raw ingredient, from a jar of pickles to organic tamari, is a food that we haven't processed in our own kitchen.
I wasn't asking you to go and research stuff for me, you muppet.
I was musing over potential parameters and sustainability to refute the op's claim that he 'did the math' and your consequent support of him ridiculing free-range farming.
I already eat a plant-based diet; I'd be chuffed to bits if everyone went all aging hippie and plant-based, but there are other valid arguments. Discussion is a learning tool, Blathin, not a personal affront.
P.S. In the list of links you cited, there is an argument for rotating arable and animal farming on agricultural land to maintain the top soil quantity and quality. That supports non-factory animal farming, rather than dismissing it as wishful thinking.
I'd want a few more parameters included before dismissing sustainable animal farming.
Arable land may not be the only land available for animal farming, for example orchards and woodland.
The parameter 'population' would need to be qualified: not all will be meat eaters and volume per person doesn't have to remain static for eating meat to be an option for those who choose, or can afford to do so.
See? You've added other parameters relevant to the calculation and they needn't be static if we change our wicked ways.
Not that I advocate eating meat, but I do advocate accepting that other people can have opinions and ideas with merit, one of them being that meat production could be sustainable on a smaler scale and if it's in harmony with other ecological practises.
online today!jac_the_gripper Forum Posts (5,363)
Are Dying Wishes Sacrosanct?
I didn't say that nothing happens, I said whatever people's beliefs, death is different from life, but we often struggle to think beyond our physical form.Wanting our ashes scattered somewhere important to us in life implies we'll have a life awareness of it in death. I'm not saying that consciousness can't exist outside of physical form, but I think we can say with some degree of certainty that one way, or another, consciousness, awareness, likes and dislikes, won't be the same when we're dead.
I like that a lot.
It's sensible, pragmatic and I can't argue with it.
So why do we heed last wishes? Are we extending someone's life when we do something they asked for after their death, or is it rooted in superstition and long-forgotten lore?