{"id":8461,"date":"2013-09-30T05:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T05:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/09\/30\/three-possible-death-bed-thoughts\/"},"modified":"2013-09-30T05:41:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T05:41:00","slug":"three-possible-death-bed-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/09\/30\/three-possible-death-bed-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Possible Death-Bed Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">I&#39;m glad I lived, but I&#39;m glad it&#39;s over.&#0160; &quot;I hope never to return.&quot; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/quotes\/52760.Frida_Kahlo\" target=\"_self\">Frida Kahlo<\/a>)&#0160; Once is enough.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">I wish I&#39;d never been born.&#0160; Once is too much.&#0160;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"><br \/>\nThis is the wisdom, if wisdom it is, &#0160;of Silenus, reported by Sophocles (<em>Oedipus at Colonus<\/em>, ll. 1244 ff.) and quoted by Nietzsche in <em>The Birth of Tragedy<\/em>, section 3:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him.&#0160; When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man.&#0160; Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words:&#0160; &quot;O wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to <em>be,<\/em> to be <em>nothing.&#0160; <\/em>But the second best for you is &#8212; to die soon.&quot;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">I love this life and wish it didn&#39;t have to end. Once is not enough.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">My view is the first.&#0160; Suppose a representative of Governance appears to you at life&#39;s end.&#0160; He says he has the power to grant you another go-round on the wheel of becoming:&#0160; if you accept his offer you will repeat your life with every detail the same.&#0160; Every detail! Including the detail of accepting the offer of <em>Noch Einmal<\/em>!&#0160; (Think about what that entails.) I would say, &quot;Hell no!,&quot; not again, not even once let alone endlessly.&#0160; <a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2013\/04\/up-or-out.html\" target=\"_self\">Up or out!<\/a> Either up to a better state, or annihilation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">This life is preliminary and probationary; surely no end in itself.&#0160; And if not preliminary and probationary, then meaningless.&#0160; In this life were are<em> in statu viae<\/em>.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<fieldset class=\"zemanta-related\">\n<legend class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/legend>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; overflow: hidden;\">\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; 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I wish I&#39;d never been born.&#0160; Once is too much.&#0160; This is the wisdom, if wisdom it is, &#0160;of Silenus, reported by Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus, ll. 1244 ff.) and quoted by Nietzsche in The Birth &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/09\/30\/three-possible-death-bed-thoughts\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Three Possible Death-Bed Thoughts&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[503,184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credo","category-death-and-immortality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}