What single thing, if you no longer had it, would make you not want to be alive?
Is there anything that could make you not want to be alive if you lost that thing?
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Do abstract things count?
If so, hope.
What qualifies as a “thing?”
My dog, I love her so much and not to be able to financially survive
@colliedog: Your question did not ask what single thing was keeping us alive you asked what single thing we wouldn’t want to live without. There is a huge difference!
I have learned that material things come and go, as do friends and lovers. I have only one child, and I have raised him mostly on my own. We are indescribably close, and being his mother has changed my life and made me a better person.
My husband.
If you’re asking for inanimate things: cool weather/precipitation.
@pdworkin Without cognition you wouldn’t want or not-want anything.
I have it now. I wouldn’t want to live if I lost it, and I know that now. I watched my dad die of Alzheimer’s. No thanks.
Hope in general. As in, non-desolation.
I’m thinking of the 1984 kind of scenario. Maybe that’s cheating. It is quite more complex than the loss of a single thing, I suppose.
Otherwise, perhaps other people’s love or acceptance. I’d find it very hard to live on if everyone would hate or dislike me.
@hearkat If the loss of something could cause you to not want to be alive, then it follows that that thing is keeping you alive.
@colliedog:
No. Oxygen, water, nutrients and a beating heart keep me alive.
Being a parent gives me a sense of purpose in life.
On three separate occasions this year, I came uncomfortably close to losing my son, but for tiny coincidences that allowed him to survive relatively unscathed.
And while in those dark, scary moments, I realized that losing one’s child IS undoubtedly the hardest loss to bear; I found a sense of serenity within myself that would allow me to continue. It was an amazing revelation for me, as I was a miserably depressed and desperate person not so many years ago.
Did you just ask this so you could argue w/all the answers??
I’d have to concur with @hearkat, it only keeps you wanting to live.
Wanting to die and actually killing yourself are not the same thing, nor do they always go hand in hand. Plenty of people just don’t dare to end it.
In addition, not wanting to live and wanting to die aren’t necessarily the same thing either.
A purpose. Without that what is the point?
@hearkat @Fyrius If you have not killed yourself, then you want to be alive, even if you are not happy with a large proportion of your life. It is not possible to be alive without wanting to be alive.
@colliedog
I just pointed out to you how you can be alive without wanting to be alive.
I’ll repeat: it’s possible not to want to be alive, and not to want to die either, if both prospects are equally nasty to you. Or maybe you believe suicidal people go to hell, so you just put up with life, waiting for a natural death.
It’s also possible to want to kill yourself, but not dare to. To have the razor blade on your wrist, to stand on the edge of the rooftop, to see the oncoming train, and chicken out. That doesn’t mean you do want to live.
@Fyrius ”it’s possible not to want to be alive, and not to want to die either, if both prospects are equally nasty to you.”
Yes, you can want both at the same time but as long as you do not kill yourself then you want to live more than you want to die. The opposite is true too – if you kill yourself, then you want to die more than you want to be alive.
@ccrow
I wish I could get into inane arguments for a living. XD
@colliedog
Crucially, I’m talking about wanting neither, not both.
I contend that you shouldn’t call it “wanting to live” if your aversion to death is just a bit greater than your aversion to life. Neither is a desire.
And then there’s still the matter of chickening out.
And the matter of not wanting to go to hell.
@Fyrius ”I contend that you shouldn’t call it “wanting to live” if your aversion to death is just a bit greater than your aversion to life.”
I concede that it would be ambiguous to do so.
Bowel control. If I start to think I gotta go and it happens before I reach the throne, I see no point in going on.
@colliedog .thats not what it implies and you know that. I’d live but life would be so hard without my little girl.
OMG…I just couldn’t go on without all my dear friends here at Fluther. (sarcasm)
@Corporate_Avenger Can you imagine if fluther suddenly went down? Wait…I’ll ask a question about that.
the simpsons
life without Homer would be meaningless and boring
I couldn’t imagine the pain of living as a paraplegic, so my mobility is the one thing I couldn’t live without.
If I lost my children, I would stop breathing.. Literally just stop breathing.
@colliedog I’m not saying I’d ever act on it, but if I were to lose my son, I’m sure I’d be in a somewhat shaken state for some time.
Literally nothing.
…Perhaps the ability to communicate with other people if we’re a little more liberal about the definition of “single thing.”
two things: each equally critical:
my daughter – if she were dead i think i would require sedatives for a long time to make it through.
the ability to walk – i see people in wheelchairs on my job all the time and i would not want to live if i were in one.
My body. If I end up as a brain in a jar, somebody please smash it. Although, come to think of it, it’s not an altogether impossible situation. I think that if I received brain damage that destroyed my ability to communicate (ie talk, write, gesture) I would not want to be alive. Such a passive (for lack of a better word; I’m tired) lifestyle would be infuriating and depressing.
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