What do you think happens after life is over?

Realistically I think we sit in a box 6 feet underground or on someones mantel in a vase for a long long time.

However I’d like to think that when we die we come back as something else and that cycle continues forever. But with how poorly we treat this planet who knows how long we’ll even be here.

you stop existing.

Welcome to fluther, @hondagirrlx. I know you’re new here. Did you by any chance try the search feature? I think this question is being asked about once a month, maybe oftener. Here’s one.

Something else.

Not a whole hell of a lot.

Why the pain? Well, it’s actually a gift. If we weren’t alive, we’d never get the chance to feel it. We’d never get the chance to do… well, anything. Life gifts us with experience. You can’t get experience any other way.

Our notions of good and bad come from society. Humans are tribal (social) animals, and we make sense out of our lives by our relationships with others. We look to others to provide a mirror and feedback and judgments about our lives. These are the things that provide meaning. If people like us; if they thank us; if they tell us we’ve made a contribution; and we believe it; we feel good about our lives. We feel our lives have meaning.

But meaning is what we decide it is. There is no objective meaning. Objectivity is an illusion. The only way we know the world is through subjective experience, and we can not break the boundaries of subjective experience. So, in the end, you have to decide what life is all about, for you.

For me, life is about serving others. If I do that, then people may appreciate me (no guarantees), or I may appreciate me (again, no guarantees). But appreciation is what I live for. My problem is that I have difficulty believing it when other people say they appreciate me because my thoughts are being skewed by a brain disorder.

Still, I have never wanted to kill myself because I thought there was no point to life. I only wanted to kill myself because the pain was too much. Even when the pain was too much, I believed that life was the only true gift I’ve ever received. It is the only possible true gift. I will only give it up when I’ve lost every little tiny drop of hope that my pain could possibly lift. I’ve come close to that. Fortunately, people convinced me to wait it out, and it did get better.

Right now, the sadness is back. I’m not sure it’s the same sadness. It is perhaps unreasonable, but it is a melancholy sadness, maybe tinged with a bit of self-pity, and a dollop of fear. I am afraid I will never be good enough. Sometimes that bothers me. Other times it’s not important. Right now it is making itself come forward in my consciousness.

I’m sorry. That’s not what you were looking for. Or maybe it was. All I know is that even when I’m falling towards depression, life is still the only gift I have, and I don’t want to lose it.

I think after you die is like before you are born. You just aren’t.

People stop asking you questions about what you think about the afterlife.

@janbb, how can you be so sure? Don’t you think you’re going to get a call someday from a medium tapping on your disembodied ear and bringing you living relatives who want to know what you think about the afterlife?

@Jeruba I sure hope not! :-)

BTW, I was on a plane two days ago and one of the movies they were offering was“Elizabeth.” Seeing her face in the program made me feel I was visiting with you!

Purgatory, then Heaven or hell!