Submitted 3 weeks ago by heyWhatsay@slrpnk.net to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
The longer we exist, the more we must let go. Do we fight against it, or accept it?
When the angel of death comes
I won’t cry.
I won’t weep and wallow
Oh why, why, why
I won’t bob and weave
When he swings his scythe
I’ll look that fucker right in the eye.
You taking me?
C’mon then, give it a try
I’ll go down swinging
When it’s my time to die
I honestly don’t think letting go implies giving anything up! I see it as letting go of the emotional load of some memories, but not of the memories themselves. I still choose to remember everything which happened to me, because it’s my past and I can do what I want with it, I just don’t let them burden me with emotions past their Best Before date (which is nonsense in practical terms, but I’m using it metaphorically).
Plus letting go of some things makes room for new things, like how one will never appreciate a current partner if they’re hung up on an ex. I see the same thing applying to everything else, including humanity ourselves! The old must always let go in order to make room for the new.
Exactly. You don’t have to “let go”, but rather you have to “process”. You have to give your emotions, memories and experience a proper place so that you can continue on making new emotions, memories and experiences. Good and bad. If you can’t do that, you might want to seek out a proffesional to help you with that.
Said it better than I did, exactly!
The main character in the movie Croupier has a really great philosophy: “Hang on tightly, let go lightly.” It took me longer to wrap my head around, but ultimately I realized it’s a rephrasing of a core stoicism concept, and I love especially memorable quotes like this.
You have ultimately no control over events. A loved one could be struck by a fatal aneurysm tomorrow and you could’t prevent it. All you can do is cherish what you have, always knowing that you could lose it at any moment.
It’s easy to read Epictitus and hear, "don’t care about your wife, because she is already dead,” and I think Epictitus really was kind of a dick. Aurelius was either a better or not compassionate author, though, and phrased it around cultivating an awareness that we are powerless against much of the universe, so hang on tightly to what you have, while you have it, but let go lightly when it is time, and don’t carry unnecessary grief and things you can’t control.
Stoicism seems, to me, to focus much on answering your specific question.
This philosophy has the issue where it tells you to roll over and die in every situation and to never rebell or argue in some circumstances. If I put you in a cage and that’s your life you have to accept this is your life and that’s it. You see the issue with this philosophy now?
Have you read any Stoic writings? That sounds like a hot take from Stoicism cliff notes.
And, no. I see no issue with Stoicism; I think it’s a very pragmatic philosophy.
As someone with cptsd letting go isn’t an option and death is pain relief.
God is change. All that we touch we change. All that we change, changes us. - Earth Seed, Book of the living - Parable of The Sower by Octavia Butler
Yes
hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yes?
Rage against the dying of the light, always. But sooner or later the end will come for us all, and that’s the part that’s the hardest to accept on an individual level, in my opinion. I still get the occasional existential crisis.
Instead, be glad that you’re here now and do what you can to make the world better for yourself, your neighbors, and society as a whole while you are. That’s all any of us can hope to do. Leave it a little nicer than we found it.