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Life vs death essay
An essay about life and death
Life vs death essay
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What, still alive at twenty-four?! Death, a term considered frightening to our ears. The idea of death or a person dying terrifies most of society. This has made discussing death an unthinkable topic in many societies. When speaking of death, most people often talk about their “bucket list” and how they would like to fulfill their dreams before they die. Scholars like Kastenbaum have discussed the topic of death in depth, while covering the anxiety one gets from thinking about it. We, as humans consider ourselves to be alive, but how do we prove we are actually alive? By utilizing Kastenbaum’s concept of life and death I will prove I am alive. What does it mean to be alive? The experience of being alive is different for everyone. No one can be certain on how being alive really feels or what the ideology is. Being alive is an experience that varies depending on the individual. Some believe that we, as individuals create our own experience of being alive. By selecting our own lifestyle choices we are already proving to be alive. By transitioning from the womb to babies, from babies to toddlers, from toddlers to teenagers, and from teenagers to adults, we have already commenced making choices, thus proving we are alive. One of the characteristics to consider when speaking about death is responsiveness. A person who is dead cannot respond to any of the signals the brain sends. A dead person cannot express their emotions, they don’t feel any pain, nor can they respond to any stimuli. Being able to respond to the signals my brain sends my body, expressing emotion, being aware of my surroundings, and reacting to all kinds of symptoms is proof that I am alive. Another piece of evidence that proves I am alive is being able to recite and ... ... middle of paper ... .... That person then starts to wonder if maybe they are not good enough, leading them to live a life of depression, causing them to feel dead. For the most part, being alive doesn’t always mean you have a life. . We, as humans consider ourselves to be alive, but how do we prove we are actually alive? Although, the lack of decomposition in my body is proof I am alive, proving I am alive has been a daunting task. In order to prove I am alive I had to challenge one to understand the difficulty and different circumstances on how a person is considered to be dead. I have tried proving that I, myself am alive by utilizing Kastenbaum’s characteristics on death. Some of the characteristics include movements, body temperature, respiration, heartbeat, and stiffness. Establishing that I procure the characteristics of a breathing person, I believe to have validated I am alive.
Mortality, the subject of death, has been a curious topic to scholars, writers, and the common man. Each with their own opinion and beliefs. My personal belief is that one should accept mortality for what it is and not go against it.
In the United States and worldwide people have different culture, beliefs and attitude about death. Over the past years, death is an emotional and controversy topic that is not easy to talk about. Everyone have a different definition of what is death and when do you know that a person is really dead. In the book Death, Society, and Human Experiences by Robert J. Kastenbaum demonstrates that you are alive, even when doctors pronounce you dead.
Nuland, Sherwin. How we die: Reflections on life's final chapter. New Yord: Vintage Books, 1993. 140-63. Print.
Phillips gives an alternative account of immortality based, not on any realm of existence beyond this life, but on certain moral and religious modes of living within this life. Unlike some of writers, e.g. R. Swinburn, D Z Phillips does not support the notion that belief in continuous personal existence is logically defendable. Indeed, he provides an extremely robust argument to the contrary, claiming that such claims are open to fatal logical objections. After briefly contradicting any notions of survival of a non-material body (the possibility of some form of bodily resurrection in this world or the next), Phillips goes on to attack the more comm... ... middle of paper ... ...
If death is really real, based upon the animistic quality of our five physical senses, then how do we know that we are truly alive and breathing, not in a dream? It has been proposed that people aware the existence of surroundings majorly rely on their five senses, which may cause illusions. The ethereal, yet grounded, theory of existentialism provides the landscape for a more positively identified pathway which reaches across the separation exists among humans.
John L McIntosh. (2003) . Handbook of Death and Dying. Volume 1: The Presence of Death. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference.
(A4) If being dead is not a painful experience, then being dead is not bad for the one who is dead.
...or someone to latch themselves on the endless possibility that someone could “wake up” after being brain dead for so long. The scientific and medical world have advanced in ways that a normal person could understand. They have specifics testing in which they can determined whether a person is completely brain dead, or simply in a coma in which they have a chance of waking up.
person lives the more apparent the truth of demise. With birth comes pain; with living comes
The criteria or definition of brain death was re-examined in 1968 by a committee at Harvard Medical School and is part of the criteria used today. They defined it as when a patient; is unresponsive to stimulus; cannot move or breathe without the aid of a ventilator and has no brain stem reflexes. Several tests are done in order to determine if a patient meets these criteria and this can be done by physicians and neurologists. A brain dead patient is legally dead and a death cer...
may experience depression and feel like they're a burden on their loved ones. When one decides not
The concept between life and death cannot simply exist without one another, where the topic is widely discussed throughout “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi. This memoir explores Paul’s definition of death as he passes through the distinct “stages” of his life. As Paul progresses through each stage, he views death differently as he transformed from a student to a neurosurgeon, neurosurgeon to a patient, and eventually becoming a father, where he needed to take full responsibility as an adult.
That is not true for me. When a person lives, it is when he/she does not worry about something far from your own concerns, it is when he/she loves to live a life helping others, but not all the time, sometimes being selfish and still ask for forgiveness. These are simple things that make us a living human being. There is a saying “Cogito Ergo Sum” by Rene Descartes which means “I think therefore I am”, it is true but life is not always about thinking. Sometimes overthinking leads to a person to do indecisive actions such as committing crimes, or even suicide, which deletes the meaning of the saying. For me, existing as a human person is simply just living life like a normal person, because that is what the society demands us to do as of now, if you do anything differently then you will be judged and criticized which is not a good sign because, again, it could lead to indecisive
One thing that we often hear is that “death is just a part of life.” So often in our day and age do we hear people utter these words. However, death is far more significant and impactful than some would allege. True death is not merely a time when we cease to exist; it is an entombment, a mindset in which we are dead to this world. Throughout our lives, it is true that we can all be dead in one way or another, but it does not have to be that way. When we have our eyes opened to what death actually is, it is far easier to grasp what the true meaning of life is, and to embrace it. Often, we will come across individuals who are enveloped in death and others who are immersed in true life. The shadow of death and entombment lies upon some, encompassing
Is the human soul mortal or immortal? With death does one fall into nothingness or does one survive death, passing into another way of existing? This is a question that has agitated thought for ages. There is something within all human beings that lives on forever. Even when death is upon us, the soul of a human being never dies. Thus, we arrive at the statement that the human soul is immortal. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the human soul is immortal through analyzing various philosophies.