Mortality lightens the load

[earl]

Earlier this week while attending a seemingly minor medical follow-up appointment, I shared with my doctor symptoms I've been having for several months. Much to my amazement, he ran an EKG and informed me I had had a heart attack of which I had not been aware some months ago. Now, in a few days, I meet with a cardiologist to learn the full scope of what I'm facing. Death, yeah we know, comes to us all. But am fascinated by the effect that such a "real" experience is having on me. It seems that having its reality pushed into my face as it has is causing me to pare down. That is, its reality has had the effect on me of focusing my mind again on what is of real value and in that process I find much of what has occupied my mind is of little value. So, it is being jettisoned. Hmm.. real awareness of mortality seems to be a slimming down process. If you really believed you were going to die at any moment, what do you think you really needed? earl

 

[wil]

I see you healthy and whole my brother.

What do I need? My fellow man to love.

 

[citizenzen]

As something of an aside, I've always enjoyed quitting a job, leaving behind all the responsibilities and drama of that workplace. It was such a freeing feeling. I imagine death provides us a similar, if not magnified, release, an opportunity to let go of all the B.S. and misplaced expectations we carry through our lives.

The only thing I need to do before dying is to sign on to a new term of life insurance, so my wife would not be destitute by my untimely and early demise. Other than that, I'm set and ready for what I expect to be a most interesting adventure.

 

[juantoo3]

If you really believed you were going to die at any moment, what do you think you really needed? earl

I hope all works to the better, earl.

I've found myself thinking along these lines from time to time. I like my few toys I allow myself, but I often wonder how quickly and easily they can be gone.

I loved playing frisbee as a young man. That was the first thing to go after I broke my leg. I still grieve from time to time, I really miss not being able to play. But I also realize I must get on with my life.

I haven't had to face death directly yet, the closest was when I broke the leg I mentioned...but that happened so fast there wasn't time to reflect.

Sometimes I think about it when the constant pain is worst, about what I might be able to bring myself to do should the need arise...and just where that threshold actually is. I am pretty fond of life, afterall, I'm in no hurry to check out any sooner than I have to.

But yes, our mortality is something that deserves consideration, if only from time to time.

My best to you as you go through this. Keep me in mind, I'm dealing with my own.

 

[iBrian]

Must have been quite an eye opener, earl - here's hoping you slow down on all those burgers with melted cheese!

 

[Tao_Equus]

Good to see you are drawing fresh inspiration from it, Earl. Be interesting to see where it leads you. My Dad had a heart attack a while back and had stints inserted in an artery. So he faced the same kind of wake up you do. I sent him a home-made card that had on the front "When I heard you had a FART ATTACK,,, I thought...nothing new there...." Which made him laugh like hell apparently. He went from being a heavy smoker to instantly stopping but cant give up his curries and cakes. He'd managed to stay quite slim till then. So double reason to lay of the double cheeseburgers!! Dont let them start you on pharmameds without having a good look at alternatives.

I have lost, with complete recall, conciousness a few times and I think death will be like that. Slightly nauseating and very fast. I still have full fitness with no conditions at all and I worry more about losing that than dying. Does not worry me enough to quit smoking though I am pretty lucky/healthy really and I put that down to a low calorie consumption.

I just wish for you that you still have many happy years with many fresh enlightenments ahead of you.

 

[earl]

I appreciate the kind words. But when I said that this awareness has a slimming down effect on me I didn't mean giving up cheeseburgers. We'll see how many of my bad habits the cardiologist expects me to jettison. Juan, I wish the best for you in your health challenges. But what I'm finding for myself is that this awareness is prompting me to simply want to appreciate. No interest now in matters ponderous, contentious; no interest in or reaction to matters of "ego." To say however I'm without fear, of course, is incorrect. But in an unexpected way, I do feel less burdened. earl

 

[nativeastral]

Earlier this week while attending a seemingly minor medical follow-up appointment, I shared with my doctor symptoms I've been having for several months. Much to my amazement, he ran an EKG and informed me I had had a heart attack of which I had not been aware some months ago. Now, in a few days, I meet with a cardiologist to learn the full scope of what I'm facing. Death, yeah we know, comes to us all. But am fascinated by the effect that such a "real" experience is having on me. It seems that having its reality pushed into my face as it has is causing me to pare down. That is, its reality has had the effect on me of focusing my mind again on what is of real value and in that process I find much of what has occupied my mind is of little value. So, it is being jettisoned. Hmm.. real awareness of mortality seems to be a slimming down process. If you really believed you were going to die at any moment, what do you think you really needed? earl

A friend of mine had the same 'wake up call' and immediately stopped smoking and started eating well [things like octopuses and sardines in tins!], but unfortunately as an alcoholic could not give up the booze and so the healthy eating slid as the drink inhibits eating yet affects the liver which affects all the other organs interdependently.

l work in a care home and have witnessed more deaths in the few months l have been there than the rest of my life; it happens quickly and usually because of more than one illness and the fatal one being an infection that is not healing...l worry too much about my lack of wealth [poverty=saturn] but should concentrate more on improving my health, the body is our temple to be kept clean and most of all stress free, the biggest killer.
All the best in maintaining healthy and stress free

 

[Dream]

As something of an aside, I've always enjoyed quitting a job, leaving behind all the responsibilities and drama of that workplace. It was such a freeing feeling. I imagine death provides us a similar, if not magnified, release, an opportunity to let go of all the B.S. and misplaced expectations we carry through our lives.

The only thing I need to do before dying is to sign on to a new term of life insurance, so my wife would not be destitute by my untimely and early demise. Other than that, I'm set and ready for what I expect to be a most interesting adventure.

Me too. I also enjoy signing on to a new job. Its the middle part isn't it?

 

[earl]

As something of an aside, I've always enjoyed quitting a job, leaving behind all the responsibilities and drama of that workplace. It was such a freeing feeling. I imagine death provides us a similar, if not magnified, release, an opportunity to let go of all the B.S. and misplaced expectations we carry through our lives.

The only thing I need to do before dying is to sign on to a new term of life insurance, so my wife would not be destitute by my untimely and early demise. Other than that, I'm set and ready for what I expect to be a most interesting adventure.

I'd say the analogy to the job is life itself. We seem to enter it with beginner's mind and by young adulthood we've already hemmed it in with too much BS and lost touch with it. You could make the claim that spirituality is fundamentally the attempt to find it again. earl

 

[lunamoth]

Hi earl,

Thank you for sharing your new-found perspective, although my feeling is that if anyone has been preparing to shed the minutia of life and experience the things that really count (loving, breathing, seeing) it is yourself.

I hope you have a full recovery and no future repeats of the heart attack. My father had a couple many years ago but has been careful about various things and no repeats since.

cheers,
luna

 

[Faithfulservant]

Hiya earl.. bucket list yet? Eye openers help you appreciate life more fully and personally for me.. contemplate what happens after death.

 

[Saltmeister]

Much to my amazement, he ran an EKG and informed me I had had a heart attack of which I had not been aware some months ago.

How do you have a heart attack and not know? Wouldn't you have collapsed?

That's scary. Can you have a heart attack without collapsing?

 

[path_of_one]

Yes- a lot of people actually have heart attacks and don't realize it. Sometimes they are small enough to just hurt in your arm for a moment, or make you feel slightly sick, and people just shrug it off. Surprising, eh?

Earl- I can understand this. Each time I've been in mortal danger, I have this sort of crystallization afterwards in which I really start looking hard at my life. Do I really need the stress of this or caring about that? It's very eye-opening in terms of paring down existence. Then I get complacent after a while and accumulate junk (worries, cares, actual junk, whatever) until the next moment like that.

I don't really know what it will be like to die. It depends a lot on how you go, I would think. My grandfathers both died of cancer, and one was lucid until the very, very end. He knew exactly the day he would die and he gave all the family messages in the last night he could speak, explaining he would die before sunrise, and he did. I can't imagine that kind of lucidity as I go- it was a real inspiration to see him face death like that, calmly with this certain peace. The only thing I can relate death to is, like Tao, when I've lost consciousness suddenly or the moments I've had bad accidents (like when I recently got tossed off a horse I was training). There is this nanosecond of knowing what is coming, but it isn't even enough time to be afraid. It's like my brain barely registers that this is happening and bam, it's already over and I'm pulling myself off the ground. The whole actual process while it's going on, I don't even have any thoughts, and now I don't have any memory of that bit of time- it happens so fast that you can't out-think it! That's the only thing I have to compare it to, so my grandfather's slow battle and resigned, calm and fully knowledgeable end is inconceivable.

My hope for you is to worry enough to take care of yourself, but not too much. I know many people who have heart attacks and live for many, many years later. I know you're the type to use this experience as a benefit and learning opportunity, and it is already giving you a new perspective. But I hope now you'll have health.

 

[citizenzen]

bucket list yet?

My bucket list...

• (nothing)
• (nothing)
• (nothing)
• (nothing)
• (nothing)
• (nothing)
• (nothing)
• (nothing)​

I don't plan on living differently whether death is decades away or days. Zen is about experiencing the present moment regardless of the conditions. That's at the top of my list everyday.

 

[Snoopy]

No interest now in matters ponderous

Hmmmmmm...care to discuss that?

s.

 

[immortalitylost]

I remember the first time that I realised I was going to die, I mean really let it sink in.

I was around five, and I woke up crying in the middle of the night, and my mom and dad couldn't console me when I said "I don't want to die" and they said "Sweety, you're not going to die." because they just didn't understand. I knew I was going to die someday.

I had another "waking up" experience about a year ago when my heart began beating way too fast, and irregularly one night as I was trying to get to sleep. It was difficult to breathe. I felt as if I would pass out at any moment. I truthfully thought I was going to die. My life didn't flash before my eyes. It was the life that I hadn't lived. The things I hadn't done. Hadn't learned.

(don't worry, I had my heart checked out and it's not a life threatening condition, just an annoying one)

What I've done to the best of my ability from then on is try to see the beauty in everything. Try to learn something from every situation. Love freely. Learn to accept love in return.

Those are the things that I find I need. Matters of the soul, eternal things. I'm a work in progress still in regards to all of those things. But I always strive for more.

I am but a mortal, after all.

 

[Saltmeister]

Yes- a lot of people actually have heart attacks and don't realize it. Sometimes they are small enough to just hurt in your arm for a moment, or make you feel slightly sick, and people just shrug it off. Surprising, eh?

Really? What is it? Atrial fibrillation? Ventricular fibrillation?

If what you're saying is true, I guess I might have had a few heart attacks. I just personally don't like the idea of it being called a "heart attack." Whenever I hear about heart attacks on the news, someone has either collapsed, been taken to hospital and died. I haven't collapsed or died. I have, however, gone to hospital to check out my condition with an electrocardiogram after seeing a general practitioner. I didn't collapse or faint.

I had another "waking up" experience about a year ago when my heart began beating way too fast, and irregularly one night as I was trying to get to sleep. It was difficult to breathe. I felt as if I would pass out at any moment. I truthfully thought I was going to die. My life didn't flash before my eyes. It was the life that I hadn't lived. The things I hadn't done. Hadn't learned.

(don't worry, I had my heart checked out and it's not a life threatening condition, just an annoying one)

I've had atrial flutter and it's pretty similar to what you're describing. My pulse is faster than normal but it appears to skip beats and/or stop every few seconds. I've had it a few times in recent years. It happens every few months.

It has always spontaneously reverted back to a sinus rhythm, but I've been told that the longer it happens, the greater the risk of a stroke. It can take anything from three to twenty hours to spontaneously revert back to its normal rhythm.

I hate going to sleep with it, but I have had to tolerate it a few times when the atrial flutter started at the wrong time of the day!

I've never thought of this as a "heart attack" because whenever I think of a heart attack, it means a cardiac arrest and my heart didn't stop. It just started pumping in an irregular and abnormal manner.

To clarify my reason for commenting, however, my atrial flutter isn't what I regard as being possibly my "heart attack." There have been times when I have felt an unusual pain/discomfort in my arm or back, sometimes accompanied by a sense of weakness. This didn't happen during my atrial flutter episodes. When I have had atrial flutter I felt quite normal in spite of my palpitations. There was no discomfort in my arm, chest or back. The only difference then was the beating of my heart. I felt just as strong.

In these times of unusual discomfort, my heart is pumping normally with the sinus rhythm.

The idea of having a heart attack makes me uncomfortable because I'm actually quite skinny and can't imagine having clogged up arteries. But then again, I haven't been having regular exercise.

 

[path_of_one]

Salty, for your own sake, you should have your cholesterol checked if you haven't already done so. You can be thin and have high cholesterol, and so still be susceptible to heart problems. I've had friends that were this way by their mid-30s, and they were very active and thin. They just had a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol and needed a different diet and some cholesterol-lowering meds. Not to push the meds, because I'm kind of anti-med myself. But it's worth checking out.

I don't think heartbeat irregularities are the same thing as a heart attack, but I do know you can have a heart attack and not realize anything is that far wrong. My father-in-law experienced this a couple years ago; like Earl, he learned he had a heart attack after several weeks of symptoms. He was still up and about and active, just had some uncomfortable symptoms.

But there are various other things people mistake for heart attacks that are not- heartbeat irregularities, panic attacks, things like that.

 

[juantoo3]

How do you have a heart attack and not know? Wouldn't you have collapsed?

That's scary. Can you have a heart attack without collapsing?

Yes, one can. My mother apparently had a heart attack and didn't know until some time later...when the doctor asked her how long ago she had the heart attack.

By that time her heart had deteriorated significantly, and she died not long after...much much much too young. She was only 53.