Realizing your own mortality

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At the age of 26 I believe I still have a huge problem with properly realizing my own mortality.

I know intellectually that I am likely going to die in about 50-70 years (if I'm one of the lucky ones), but I don't seem to actually feel this naturally.

This gives me huge problems because what motivates people is basically their understanding of their own mortality - and that they are ultimately alone in this world. At the end of the day, only one person is going to help you, and that's you. Your spouse could die before you, and then you would be left alone again.

I'm academically clever with an average of over 10 in my marks from my university master degree in a complex field only few could handle. I often feel like I'm a little 8-9 year old boy inside, but a very intelligent little boy - academically more competent than many adults. The problem is that the world requires a huge social capital to function naturally - I'm constantly trying to "convert" my academic capital to social capital, but it's quite draining.

Is it because of lacking "social intelligence" that I can only academically realize my own mortality, instead of being able to "feel" it?

I have been living on my own for 4 years now, but this old child-parent bond to my parents to some extent still exists inside me - a bond that should have been replaced by a different one long ago. It's because I'm merely a little boy inside. Obviously a 8-9 year old boy would like to have parents to take care of him. It's a weird situation/feeling.

I'm 26, but I still have a hard time having people and myself think of me as an adult.

Can anyone relate to this?

Yeah I know what you mean. I only recently started to appreciate this as I realized most of my high school friends and even my own immediate family now have kids who are growing up fast.

I'm sure NTs also experience this reality check.

I've been pretty near death before so my mortality is always front and center in my mind. I'm careful when I cross the street because one little misstep could buy me the farm. I've also had illnesses that has weakened me and reminds me that the end of this journey can come at any time.

Not sure if people's own mortality is what actually drives them. Most people tend to not want to think about death, especially their own, and try to avoid the topic or even thought of it. For people who are motivated, I think it's life and the enjoyment they can have out of it that motivates them.

I personally do know what you are talking about though. Through health issues, and some pretty rough times I definitely feel and sense the inevitable outcome of life as I know it.

I'm just not sold on what happens after death. I have no problem believing that you are just gone. I didn't have a consciousness before I got here, don't see the problem with not having it after I'm gone. Many people can't handle this thought and it deeply troubles them.

I can't say I believe in heaven and hell. At least the way religion puts it.

I think most people (including myself) live with a vague intellectual understanding, unless they've had a brush with a serious illness, war, etc. Meditating on your own/others death(s) is important in Buddhism because it brings a recognition of our mortality, and a deeper acceptance the inevitable.

As for adulthood, I think it's less important to "feel" adult. (I sure don't ) The important thing is to take care of your responsibilities to the best of your ability. The longer you do so, the more people will see you in an adult light.

I think in a person's 20's and for some even into the early 30's it's pretty normal not to be fully connected to one's own mortality. Cherish that feeling of just connecting to life. Now that I'm 45 I'm too conscious of my mortality and wish I still felt that strong connection to a feeling of having forever to achieve my hopes and dreams and also my sense of adventure.

Interesting. I see things in the opposite way.

I believe I cannot feel my mortality because I have lost my childhood innocence, not because I have retained it.

When you first hear your favourite song, you experience wonderful feelings. Then when you play it to yourself again and again, you gradually lose the ability to feel it.

In a similar way, small children experience a wonderful array of feelings related to life and the world around them. They may feel great joy at viewing a beautiful sunset, and feelings of intense sadness when their favourite pet dies. This is all part of learning to be alive.

As they grow older, they slowly lose their ability to feel. This means it usually takes very unique or poignant events to create strong feelings of sadness in an adult.

So I think the reason you cannot feel is because you are too old inside, not because you are too young. (However, I know what you mean about feeling child-like. I too am unusualy child-like in many ways)

I fairly certain that most people have trouble comprehending their own mortality, and are driven by status/power and pleasure over their eventual death, especially in their 20's unless they have had close encounters with death.

I am also 26 and I pretty much always feel like I am mostly a little 8yr old inside, and I do have a close relationship with my one living parent and my family. I do not feel this is inappropriate at all. I do live on my own and I have a steady boyfriend who is talking about marriage, but I am still very close to my dad. I am in a master's program for a specialized area of engineering and am academically capable but I do not connect well with most of my peers. I am told that I make things sound dry and clinical when describing emotional things but I still feel them and run around like a gitty, giggling child inside.

Look how old I am! Talk about realizing my approaching mortality!
As the saying goes: "Repent! The end is near."
I look at it this way. What is death, but a release from this miserable veil of tears that we call life?
Or perhaps you might choose to believe in reincarnation, in which case death is just a revolving door that leads us into another life.

It is not at all uncommon for young people, especially young men, to think they are immortal, at least on some level. This is why the military loves to recruit 18-20 year-old males. I think most men change when they get married and have children, or in the absence of that, when their bodies start showing the wear and tear of life.

At almost 42 years old I can say that I still feel the same as I did at 32, 22, and 12. I think feeling like a kid trapped in an adult's body is pretty common, if not universal. It's not quite the same thing as losing your innocence. I've definitely lost that but that doesn't mean I feel like what I thought it would feel like to be a "grown up".

My 23 year old brother (and only sibling) died in a car accident a week after my 28th birthday. Ever since then the realization of my own and my loved ones mortality has been very real to me on pretty much a daily basis. We really don't know for sure when we head out the door if we're ever coming home. I tend to be more cautious because of this but it also means I try not to leave things undone or unsaid.

The progression of time has been especially concerning to me in recent years. I've gotten more nostalgic, wishing for 10 or 20 years back. In part because I often think I'd like a do-over but I'd also like to just be in my early adulthood forever. I love being alive despite the painful times and it all seems to be flying by so fast.

I don't think my mortality drives me. If anything it causes me to want to give up seeing it's only a matter of time before anything I do won't matter anymore. I'm currently working on my bachelor's degree and working very hard to have high grades. Ironically, I drive by a cemetery on my way to campus and often question why I'm bothering to work so hard when I'm still going to end up dead regardless of what I do until then. I think we all try to do something to make a lasting impact and leave our mark but very few people are remembered over time even if they were famous in their day.

Hi everybody.

Thanks for your answers.

I probably didn't express myself quite the way it was intended.

What I mean is I have a hard time intuitively understand that I'm ultimately all alone and that I have the full responsibility for my own life. I remain in a child-like state where I still expect somebody is going to help me even though it is not true (at least not the kind of help I'm thinking of). This drains my motivation because I don't feel life, I don't properly feel the threats even when they are very real all the time. If I don't do things it will have consequences, but it's as if I have to intellectually think it through before it appears to be true. This makes it hard to think of life as important, and that's a huge problem.

Can anyone relate to this?

Sooner or later, it may hit you, and when it does, it hits pretty hard. For me, that was around twenty to thirty years old. Now I know I'll die. At first it was terrifying. But I guess I am getting used to terror.

The tendency to rely on others, to be emotionally dependent, is not something you find only among autistics; you find it among NTs all the time. People think they "need" their husband or wife, or even their children, to take care of them. People get the idea that they're helpless and need other people to basically run their lives.

That's different from interdependence, which is a healthy adult trait that involves participating in your community, both receiving and giving help, without losing your self-determination to that community. As you get older, you may move slowly toward interdependence rather than dependence.

Good luck.

Sometimes when I'm out on my bike I aim myself at on coming cars. I think I have a death wish. I do realize my own mortality.

Thank you Callista.

I confidently speculate that this is due to Aspergers, but I would really like to hear whether somebody deals with the same issue. I know others can have this problem too, but I feel my case is extremely serious.

I tend to "forget" myself so I forget I have the full responsibility for my own life. Noone is going to save me. It's bothersome I still have to tell myself this. It's so obvious.

"Death is not an event in life."