graffitiworthreading's recent activity
-
Comment on Near-death experiences in ~talk
-
Comment on What is your favorite TV show that you rewatch often? in ~tv
graffitiworthreading LinkBabylon 5. I was previously in the habit of re-watching it about once a year, but I'm trying to break out of the habit of re-watching the same few shows endlessly and actually reading or watching...Babylon 5. I was previously in the habit of re-watching it about once a year, but I'm trying to break out of the habit of re-watching the same few shows endlessly and actually reading or watching new things. Even so, B5 will always be something I return to eventually because it's just so philosophically and emotionally relevant to life in general. For all of its casting and production struggles and the resulting flaws, it's amazing show start to finish, and I feel like I learn or am reminded of something important about life every time I watch it. There's always an episode or scene that's relevant to what I'm struggling with at the time.
That said, it's getting harder and harder to re-watch as the cast keep tragically dying far too young.
-
Comment on I, like many of you came from Reddit. But what brought you to Reddit? in ~tech
graffitiworthreading LinkI ended up on reddit around the time of the great Digg migration, but I wasn't part of it. I spent far too much of my time online through my teen and young adult years and yet somehow never ended...I ended up on reddit around the time of the great Digg migration, but I wasn't part of it. I spent far too much of my time online through my teen and young adult years and yet somehow never ended up on Digg or similar sites; I played games and visited low-brow humor sites like big-boys/break, collegehumor, etc., but I didn't engage with any sites where actual discussion took place.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I originally found reddit in 2010 during the brief period in which I thought rage comics were absolutely hilarious.
My experience wasn't truly near-death, but for a moment I perceived it to be, so the effect was similar. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sensation of my heart pounding in a way I'd never felt before. I felt awful in a way I couldn't fully comprehend at the time since I was still drowsy and disoriented from waking at such an odd hour. I was on the verge of calling 911 thinking I might be having a heart attack when I decided to google heart attack symptoms (smart, right?) and ended up looking at side-by-side comparisons of heart attack symptoms vs anxiety and panic attacks. Of course, one of the symptoms associated with both heart attacks and panic attacks was phrased as something like, "A sense of impending doom," which is exactly how I felt. Regardless of physical symptoms and sensations, I felt like I was about to die. Considering that I'm not dead, I seem to have assumed correctly that I was having a panic attack and not a heart attack. But that didn't make the feeling that I was about to die seem any less real.
While the incident didn't radically change my life overnight, it did serve as my personal example of the classic experience of a brush with death forcing a change in one's perspective. After the main symptoms passed, I was still rattled for a few days, and I thought a lot about the "what if I died that night?" question. Some things I'd been obsessing over didn't seem to matter so much, and other things I'd been putting off seemed more important. I was already aware of the "memento mori" concept, but that experience nudged me toward actively embracing it. I still fail to engage with it on a sufficiently regular basis, but I've slowly been getting better about being more mindful of passing time and deciding how I want to live my life.