What if we knew our due time?

S

Sorena

Regular Poster
MBTI
INFJ
We all have a certain amount of time to live and no one know what their due time is. And it is one of the biggest mysteries of life.

But what if we knew our due time? our departure time I mean … maybe it was easier to be nice, especially for those who believe in the afterlife … the crimes would be less or none … the world would become a better place I guess. right?

But what about the justice?

The truth is that man reveals his true nature during the time. I believe we have been given a limited amount of time with the atmost freedom and no clue of our due time, so be free to do whatever we desire without thinking it might be our last second and have no time left to regret and make amend.

To finally make the judgment possible, the lifetime has become limited with no prior announcement. That is a brilliant idea!👍

I used to think those with incurable diseases, somehow, have been given a gift … by telling them their departure time …😇

Since a few months ago, I have started to think if this was my last week, how would I spend it? what would I regret for not doing it when the time comes? this thought encouraged me to finish my incomplete work. If I was alive at the end of the week I will extend the time😁. It can also be a day-to-day thing … It has been fun and I feel kind of relieved.🤗


What do you think about the whole idea?
 
Last edited:
Thoureh said:
We all have a certain amount of time to live and no one know what their due time is. And it is one of the biggest mysteries of life.

But what if we knew our due time? our departure time I mean … maybe it was easier to be nice, especially for those who believe in the afterlife … the crimes would be less or none … the world would become a better place I guess. right?

But what about the justice?

The truth is that man reveals his true nature during the time. I believe we have been given a limited amount of time with the atmost freedom and no clue of our due time, so be free to do whatever we desire without thinking it might be our last second and have no time left to regret and make amend.

To finally make the judgment possible, the lifetime has become limited with no prior announcement. That is a brilliant idea!👍

I used to think those with incurable diseases, somehow, have been given a gift … by telling them their departure time …😇

Since a few months ago, I have started to think if this was my last week, how would I spend it? what would I regret for not doing it when the time comes? this thought encouraged me to finish my incomplete work. If I was alive at the end of the week I will extend the time😁. It can also be a day-to-day thing … It has been fun and I feel kind of relieved.🤗


What do you think about the whole thing?
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Limiting one's self to this life? You've lost. Hoarding pleasure and freedom from discomfort? Serving yourself and yours? Being the master of your Fate? Ignoring evil because it doesn't touch you?
What if it isn't about you? What if your role is to serve a benevolent Master who wants you to live with Him forever? What if He loves you so much that He fights for you to be able to endure the pain of the battle you are in?
I know tht the momentum of the preponderance of evil in this world would eliminate everything lovely, if there wasn't a force far more powerful that was stopping it. What is that Power? And can He be known? What is the evidence? Why not investigate it? Are you just too comfortable?
 
I don’t think things would change much at all.

Cheers,
Ian
 
Consider the opposite mindset.
Many would interpret this knowledge as a form of invincibility and carry themselves in countless harmful ways as a result.
Knowing when your time is up is of little consequence when it comes to shaping moral character.
Some will value however much time they have, some won't. Knowing who gets more and who gets less is always a path towards jealousy for humans.
 
Some rambles ....

It's good to think of every new day as a gift - that our lives are something we lease day by day rather than own. We take our lives for granted because they seem to be so commonplace and ordinary, but that's a great illusion. If you stand with me at the beginning of the universe, the chances that it would eventually produce you and me are vanishingly small - you'd be more likely to win a state lottery outright 100 times in a row than come into being from that perspective. It's such an incredible privilege - though maybe it doesn't feel like it a lot of the time. I sometimes feel the phantoms of the many people who could have existed but didn't because the choices my ancestors made, and the circumstances of their lives, led to me not them.

This topic reminds me of one of Jung's thoughts, which is that in a sense our lives are bounded by a preparation for and accommodation with death. He didn't mean this in a nihilistic way, but as the way of fulfilment. It's when we are able to give back what we borrowed from the Great Mother when we were born, hopefully with interest in some form.

It obviously makes a difference if you think your life continues after death or not. On the one hand your attention will be focused on what comes next and whether that depends on what to are and do now. On the other hand, eat drink and be merry maybe? Mind you there may well be a happy middle way between these two?

I don't think knowing the time and date of my death would make a huge difference to these fundamentally, though it would certainly give a different sort of structure to the details of my life. At my age, though, in my mid-70s, life is no longer open-ended like it can feel when we are younger. Most of my recent older relatives died between the ages of 80 and 99, so I guess that's the most likely range for me too. I think having a date would be for me a bit like knowing the date I'm leaving school - on to the next adventure!

There would be downsides to having a date - depending on how it worked. I guess I could be reckless to a greater extent knowing I cannot do myself in just yet LOL.

It's worth thinking about the opposite - having no death and being immortal in this life. I only have to look at the history of the past 3,000 years to be thankful I don't have to live through the next few thousand. One ordinary lifetime is enough, I'd hate that kind of immortality.
 
Statistically, the likelihood that the conjugal act will result in a child that reaches five years of age is remarkably small. So much so, only a fool would bet on it coming to pass, yet it does, because the number of conjugal acts ensures the unlikely becomes commonplace.

Were it not for modern medicine, I would have died at two weeks of age, and again at six months. Certainly back in 2018. Stephanie would have made it to age fifteen.

So many I have known now gone. The suicides, the deaths from drug and drink, the cancers, the mental illness, and the misfortunes.

I looked at the registry of my high school graduating class recently. All the above, and also murders. The murdered and a murderer.

A friend’s grandson did not live to see his seventh day, and regrettably, his death was one of otherwise avoidable consequence.

2018 changed me in that I no longer experience depression of any kind. I also ache something fierce, but it is such a sweet ache.

I learned—not understanding, but knowing—that death could come any time. Nothing seems mundane any longer. Every event seems a little adventure, or quest.

When I meet a stranger’s dog, it is the dog and me, but not. In that moment it is spirit eternal in recursion. It’s never what it seems if you take care to be awake. The world melts away and there is only two hearts, a hand, and fur.

Cheers,
Ian
 
I feel this post pulling me into a deep state of existentialism but I will resist the urge. It seems like most INFJ's like to purse the WHY but this question provokes the WHY through a glaring and daunting WHAT.

When I think of life as it pertains to time, the number of questions get smaller as I step further away from both existence on this planet AND the short amount of time we spend with a handful of those people core to our existence.

I generally think of a "due date," as the time we enter this world and an expiration date as the time we depart. Our due date is generally known by our parents and doctors within a small window in comparison to our predictable lifespan; however, our expiration date is difficult to know when we compare it to this small window of arrival. Yet if we move away from our lifespan window by 1000 or 1 million years then the perspective of that window becomes trivial in the same way as our birth.

To me, this line of thought and the associated feelings begin to rapidly take shape. The arrival, life, and departure become insignificant and the purpose is all that remains. The real value in every life becomes about growth for us (the soul from my perspective) and the impact we have on the growth of others around us. Even the death of a baby has meaning in this context because that soul made an impact on the life trajectory of others - most notably the mother and father.

As I have aged I've become more comfortable with death because my purpose has grown and so has my soul. Even in writing this post, I feel that I will have touched the lives of a few people. After I leave this world, should I be seen with some kind of value to those that remain, this post could give even greater growth or value to an untold number of people - that said, I prefer the intimacy of knowing that my words being delivered to this small group of like individuals will give comfort.

When I reflect on those that have been here over time, I think of a man named James that had an impact on many. Though I never met him in person, there are times when I can feel the impact he had on me and us. I believe this is the perspective I was attempting to relay.
 
It would simplify things considerably. For one thing, you could go skydiving with immunity because you'd know your time isn't up yet. For another, you could plan your finances/retirement much more optimally by pivoting to low-risk investments (bonds rather than mutual funds) only when you really are running down the clock. It would also save much anguish and money spent on last-hope medical procedures, because you'd know precisely which would succeed and which wouldn't (although there's still some room for uncertainty around risk of disability).

There was a short story anthology pulled together by the author of Dinosaur Comics called Machine of Death. All the short stories in it came from a thought experiment about what you'd do if you knew how (but not when) you were going to die. There were a lot of clever takes, but the story from the collection that sticks with me all these years later is this one where there's a guy who knows he's going to die of starvation who gets lost in a jungle and nearly starves to death only to be saved by his buddy at the last hour. Now he knows not only how painful starvation is, but that he has to go through it one more time in his life.
 
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