Existential angst

McToot

Working from home today in my 'shedquarters' and on one of my dawdles back indoors the lady next door called over and asked if she could pop round. 

She just wanted to let me know that her husband has days to live and not to worry if I see lost of strange cars/people/hearses going back and forwards. 

I'm totally knocked off course by the news.  I don't know them all that well as they only returned from living in the middle east a few months ago.  But they've been pretty friendly and very helpful about our house extension (he was in construction). 

He has had bowel cancer but was operated on a while back and other than it being a bitch of an op to get over, I thought the prognosis was pretty strong.  But he had a PET scan last week and his body lit up like a Christmas tree, with secondaries everywhere from tip to toe.  It will be mercifully swift. 

All of a sudden my interest in the report I have been trying to edit has waned dramatically.  It all seems so fucking trivial. 

To top it off I have to go to a pissing black tie awards thing tonight and shmooze/look chirpy.  Bollocks. 

What's it all about eh?

 

jd0272

Yeah we lost a couple of good friends earlier this year. Bloody awful. Puts it all in perspective somewhat.

Lixarto

Yes, it's all about perspective.

Cancel tonight's appointment and if asked why, tell them the truth.

Blea.

Jalapeno

Know exactly what you mean, my first (as in decades ago) steady girlfriend committed suicide a couple of weeks back - had been in occasional Facebook contact, but we hadn't seen each other for over 20yrs. Knocked me totally sideways, I was surprised the effect this had on me ....

Lixarto

Ah, sad news Mick

Jalapeno

Lixarto said:

Ah, sad news Mick

Thanks Amigo - it's helped a lot that 3 common old friends said exactly the same - they'd been in regular and recent FB contact, were totally shocked etc.

holnrew

Threads like this make me feel as though I'm a psychopath.

octatonic

McToot said:

Working from home today in my 'shedquarters' and on one of my dawdles back indoors the lady next door called over and asked if she could pop round. 

She just wanted to let me know that her husband has days to live and not to worry if I see lost of strange cars/people/hearses going back and forwards. 

I'm totally knocked off course by the news.  I don't know them all that well as they only returned from living in the middle east a few months ago.  But they've been pretty friendly and very helpful about our house extension (he was in construction). 

He has had bowel cancer but was operated on a while back and other than it being a bitch of an op to get over, I thought the prognosis was pretty strong.  But he had a PET scan last week and his body lit up like a Christmas tree, with secondaries everywhere from tip to toe.  It will be mercifully swift. 

All of a sudden my interest in the report I have been trying to edit has waned dramatically.  It all seems so fucking trivial. 

To top it off I have to go to a pissing black tie awards thing tonight and shmooze/look chirpy.  Bollocks. 

What's it all about eh? 

It is really, really tough to face death, or the death of people you know, especially when it is some illness that is currently incurable, where we are making inroads towards a cure.

It is dreadfully sad but try not to let it drag you down with it.

Life is for living, as much as your can.

I don't rue the day I will die- I'm sure I will hate it when it happens.

I'm more concerned about the years of my life I pissed away worrying about things I can't do anything about and the moments in my life when I've been less kind to people I care about or worried about the opinion of people who don't have my best interests at heart.

We're all dead a dreadfully long time, so I try to focus on the good stuff in life and be a cheery as I can when the less than good stuff happens.

I find drinking helps too.

Drew_TNBD

^ my nigga.

Bellycaster

What's it all about?

Such a deep question.

All I can say is that the more years that go by, the more I wonder where they went. I didn't used to think about it much in my 20's or most of my 30's but now I can relate to that great Pink Floyd Line:  "And then one day you find, 10 years have got behind you"

I also do wonder about people I used to know and it is not unusual for someone to be knocked sideways if they hear of an old friends death.

In whatever circumstances that past friend dies, it hits you like a cannonball because it makes you realise you are not immortal.

Life is also absurd and cruel. I have a nephew (29) with a genetic illness from his late Mother's side, not our Family side. He is in the late stages of it and to see that level of deterioration is quite upsetting. It can really make you appreciate what you have if you are relatively healthy.

 

 

Drew_TNBD

I lost a close family member every year from the ages of 15 to 19. Maybe that'll give you some perspective on who I am, and you'll stop fucking facepalming me.

[Deleted User]

Drew_fx;48186" said:

I lost a close family member every year from the ages of 15 to 19. Maybe that'll give you some perspective on who I am, and you'll stop fucking facepalming me.

May be you would gain more respect if you were pleasanter to you fellow man?

The crassness of many of your posts is often highly offensive.

You may have suffered tragedies on your life - many of is have - but it does not give you the right to trample over the sensibilities of others. If anything, the loss of people close to me has given me greater empathy towards other's losses.

Drew_TNBD

Dear Richard Littlejohn,

Fuck off. You have no idea about where I've been and what I've come through, nor about the kind of person I am today. I find you insincere and morally desolate, and you have no monopoly on good manners nor good taste. You are trampling over my sensibilities RIGHT FUCKING NOW, and you're too thick or ignorant to even recognise it!

Here you go...listen to a song and stfu:

octatonic

richardhomer said:

Drew_fx;48186" said:

I lost a close family member every year from the ages of 15 to 19. Maybe that'll give you some perspective on who I am, and you'll stop fucking facepalming me.

May be you would gain more respect if you were pleasanter to you fellow man?

The crassness of many of your posts is often highly offensive.

You may have suffered tragedies on your life - many of is have - but it does not give you the right to trample over the sensibilities of others. If anything, the loss of people close to me has given me greater empathy towards other's losses.

I don't find anything Drew says to be crass or unpleasant.

We should all be free to say what we want, within the law & observing rule 1.

Drew_TNBD

Yeah but y'see Jim... unless you quiver at the knees about absolutely everything, then you're obviously breaking rule 1. And if you even dare question the motivations of a post, or a comment... lo and behold... rule one!! BREAKENDED!!

octatonic

Drew_fx said:

Yeah but y'see Jim... unless you quiver at the knees about absolutely everything, then you're obviously breaking rule 1. And if you even dare question the motivations of a post, or a comment... lo and behold... rule one!! BREAKENDED!!

I don't see it like that.

Dickishness isn't occasionally messing with the style of the forum and pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable behaviour.

You do that.

IMHO dickishness is being precious and/or arrogant, mostly.

It is obvious that a few people have a problem with you- the number of facepalms you're getting aren't from a single person.

It can't be if you look at how they present.

I'm not surprised you've got the shits with it- it is a cowards way out, mostly.

I've facepalmed a few people- I'm not saying that is the cowards way out- people do say dumb fuckin' shit.

But a sustained anonymous facepalming from a bunch of people in cahoots is fucking cowardly.

As far as offence- it is taken not given, in most situations.

I'm not saying there isn't room to improve in terms of how you red-rag-to-a-bull (see comment to Richard above) but frankly I reckon you've been pushed over the last couple of weeks.

How about a truce for everyone, and we restart, no harm, no foul?

Bucket

I like to think I can recognise when Drew is pissing about and when he's making a serious point (I'm talking about him as if he's not here, sorry), and I guess much of the pissing-about could indeed be taken as crass and offensive if you have had a catastrophic sense-of-humour bypass but I assume it's (mostly) meant in jest, so why bother being offended by it? I may be wrong, of course (usually am).

As for the topic at hand... I've been lucky so far that I haven't had that many deaths to deal with, but the thought of having to deal with people I love dying does freak me out a lot (I think it'd be odd if it didn't...). Then last year a guy who was in the year above me at school was killed in a car crash at the age of 17... I didn't know him that well but it floored me like it did many other people I knew. Really made me think about how quickly it can all end. Whenever I saw him around, I always just sort of assumed I'd see him again...

dindude

So Richard took the "non-cowards" way that is so craved and said what he thought, in a fairly polite way, and was met with a torrent of abuse.

Drew_TNBD

dindude said:

So Richard took the "non-cowards" way that is so craved and said what he thought, in a fairly polite way, and was met with a torrent of abuse.

But nontheless true.

Bucket said:

Then last year a guy who was in the year above me at school was killed in a car crash at the age of 17... I didn't know him that well but it floored me like it did many other people I knew. Really made me think about how quickly it can all end. Whenever I saw him around, I always just sort of assumed I'd see him again...

We do it all the time.

When I was 15 I went home from school one lunch time. My dad was there, chest pains... I thought nothing of it. He sent me back to school, refused to let me see him in pain, even though I was completely blind to it because I'd always thought of him as this scary man who beat me when he got angry and who encouraged me when he felt creative.

An hour later and he was fucking dead. Puked up a load of weetabix onto the living room carpet floor, died, and the ambulance, doctor, and hospital couldn't save him.

You never can tell when something like that is going to happen. Jim is right. Life IS for the living, and the living should be less twatty about it!

octatonic

dindude said:

So Richard took the "non-cowards" way that is so craved and said what he thought, in a fairly polite way, and was met with a torrent of abuse.

As I said, he (Drew) could have phrased that a bit better, sure- but also he's been pushed the last few weeks.

I didn't find Richard's approach that polite.

It came across as condescending and it took Drew's comment of 'stop fucking facepalming' (which I took to be a bit tongue in cheek) into a discussion that seems now to be much more serious.

My whole interest here though is along the lines of 'let's all get along'.

I feel that people are willing to win the battle but lose the war- sometimes groups like this involve letting a few things slide in order for group cohesion.

If I reacted to every slight or joke made at my expense I'd never get anything done.

Drew_TNBD

I think it is highly unrealistic to start a thread about existential angst and expect me not to get involved. Existential angst is basically my thing... I'm not really all that versatile!