"Childhood's over the moment you know you're gonna die"

[Daftmau5]

When I turned 5.
First I just figured it out (forgot how. Just did), and soon after my parents just flat out told me "Someday in the distant future, you're going to die." Of course, it wasn't explained that bluntly, but you get the point.

Spoiler: My reaction:

"Oh cool. What's for dinner?"

Never really saw it as a big deal.

 

[Bob Hoss]

Although people in my life had died before, it didn't really hit me what death was until I was
3 years old and fell into the community pool.

I tried to jump from the side and into the
hollow on an inner-tube, grabbing onto it once I hit the water. It was wet, I didn't get a grip
on it, and I went under in the deep end of the pool. I almost drowned, but some guy noticed me,
luckily enough.

 

[crop52]

I hate the title of this thread.

What's up with the notion that being unhappy makes you mature and wise?

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

I started "contemplating life" early in middle school which sent me into a whiny, depressed phase. I became a lazy, nihilistic prick for a while, and I lost a lot of friends because of it. Now, I know every minute of life is a gift and I'm loving it.

Damn, was middle school the worst period of my entire life...

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

i don't remember the age, but the movie golddigger was in theatres (if you can remember such a time) i think it was mid 90's. anyway, the tom-girl character gets her leg trapped under a boulder, i suddenly felt sick and ran out into the lobby where i proceeded to have my very first panic attack...

no wonder my childhood sucked

 

[Zakarath]

:shrug: It never really hit me all that hard, or all at once. For whatever reason, it never really threw me. I dunno. I'll worry about my mortality when I die from it.


...memento mori...

 

[Erja_Perttu]

I hate the title of this thread.

What's up with the notion that being unhappy makes you mature and wise?

It's a quote from a movie. I think it was chosen because it makes an interesting statement, if not a correct one.

OT: I was about eleven, I think. Bit of a bizarre revelation to have at any age, that life isn't indefinite, and it took me a long tome to come to terms with, but hey, life goes on, until it doesn't.

 

[sgt. soap mctavish]

Weirdly i was 5 and i got it by watching Ghost Whisperer.

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

I hate the title of this thread.

What's up with the notion that being unhappy makes you mature and wise?

uhhhhh, not to be that guy but i think you be wrong holmes. to me it means you can't enjoy life with childish innocence when you're worried about death. not that it makes you smarter or more mature somehow.

this has nothing to do with anything, but just out of curiosity, how old are you?

 

[Akytalusia]

fool. there's no such thing as death. i do acknowledge that our bodies, however, do expire. and it would be silly to worry about that. worrying about that is like a prisoner worrying that one day he'll actually be released.

 

[SimpleJack]

When I was like seven? i was doing something completely unrelated, I think i was reading some catalogue for groceries that were on sale, and it just entered my mind somehow.

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

I have to say that I actually had something like entirely the opposite experience as you. I don't understand death. At all really. The closest thing I get to it is that that person pretty much isn't within a near enough vicinity for me to interact with them. Say I have a friend who lives four states away? I group them the same as I would my dead grandma. I can't see them or contact them easily, they pretty much don't exist.

And by the alternate experience? I meant that I've actually never been afraid of being killed. I do fear the pain, and I do fear the idea of being attacked by someone truly psychotic. But as a child I always planned very carefully for such eventualities in a thoughtful and logical manner. I would go to my basement, lay down and say: Okay, something's wrong with my arms, so I can't use them at all, GO. And I'd work out something for that.
I would spend at least an hour a day working out such scenarios.

 

[hakojo]

I was about eight; I was watching a movie with my mom, and as was our custom, we had turned off all the lights in the living room. Suddenly, out of nowhere, bam.

I still remember what it felt like, too; this awful cold, pins-and-needles chill shot through my brain, and it was like I could feel time physically pulling on me while I tried to resist. Then I started crying, and my mom had no idea how to comfort me because I just kept repeating that I didn't want to live because I didn't want to die.

Time has never felt like it's moving too slowly since. I still have panic attacks from time to time, although they're a lot less frequent now that I have a full time job and school to keep me busy.

 

[crop52]

I hate the title of this thread.

What's up with the notion that being unhappy makes you mature and wise?

uhhhhh, not to be that guy but i think you be wrong holmes. to me it means you can't enjoy life with childish innocence when you're worried about death. not that it makes you smarter or more mature somehow.

this has nothing to do with anything, but just out of curiosity, how old are you?

It doesn't matter what the quote means to you, it's pretty clear cut about what it means. I found out I was gonna die when I figured out what death is, which would probably be around 5. I was still able to enjoy life like a regular kid. A lot of people in this thread found out around that age too, and to say that childhood ended for them at that age is just dumb.

I'm fourteen.

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

I hate the title of this thread.

What's up with the notion that being unhappy makes you mature and wise?

uhhhhh, not to be that guy but i think you be wrong holmes. to me it means you can't enjoy life with childish innocence when you're worried about death. not that it makes you smarter or more mature somehow.

this has nothing to do with anything, but just out of curiosity, how old are you?

It doesn't matter what the quote means to you, it's pretty clear cut about what it means. I found out I was gonna die when I figured out what death is, which would probably be around 5. I was still able to enjoy life like a regular kid. A lot of people in this thread found out around that age too, and to say that childhood ended for them at that age is just dumb.

I'm fourteen.

how can you say for certain since you didn't experience it? who's dumb now, oh wait that's right you...

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

I was asking my Mom if I would live forever at the age of 8 and she said that it is not possible as humans grow old and then wither and die if they don't die from injury and disease. I then triumphantly told her I would at least live to be 200, I am currently 19 years old so I got 181 years to go. XD

Anyway I honestly don't fear death as my religious convictions don't give me any reason to fear death as I personally believe in an afterlife. If death was simply the cessation of my entire existence including my mind/soul then I would be scared out of my mind to no longer exist after I die, but since I don't believe that I just feel like I should live my life the best I can until death comes my way. Maybe I will buy death a beer or two when he comes to visit me, show him that I don't find him all that menacing.

 

[crop52]

how can you say for certain since you didn't experience it? who's dumb now, oh wait that's right you...

Do you mean that I haven't experienced childhood, or life?
Is there a certain age where childhood ends? Is there a certain age where life begins?

Anyways, my point still stands. There are other people in this thread who found out they were going to die at a young age, and had a regular, childish childhood.

 

[jakkuss]

A lot of younger folk don't really know what it was like to grow up in the 70's and 80's. The inevitability of nuclear war was hammered into our heads so hard that I spent a lot of time as a kid just feeling sad that I would never get to know what it was like to be a grown up. So, yeah, there's that...

 

[PleasantAsAHeadcrab]

I think I was about four, maybe three, somewhere in there. I remember I had just gone to my grandpapa's funeral, and I was watching my favorite movie at the time, The Land Before Time, and right around the time Little Foot's mummy died, it occurred to me that 'One day, My mummy is going to die too...Oh no, even I'm going to die!' I vividly remember then curling up in my bed and just shivering and whimpering for a couple hours before deciding that I had to be brave, and then going out to the parlor room and giving my mum a big hug 'just because'.

...I was a weird, if not kind of creepy child.