One of those topics where I have no idea whether this is normal (for a fan) or very strange
Today at 2:30pm my new fannishness for Boston Legal reached the point where I was pretty sure that if I were to die today, my main regret in my final moments would be not having seen more episodes.
I do quite a lot of driving on a two-lane highway with some pronounced bends and it often occurs to me how easily my life could be extinguished by someone straying over to the wrong side of the road. I make a point of thinking about this, too, since I think one of the most interesting things about being human is getting to face the thought of your own death (assuming you have no belief in an afterlife, which I imagine would significantly dilute this issue). Normally this thought doesn't bother me much - I've had a great life and it's already been much longer than many people get, particularly if you look at the full timespan of human history. There's very little I want that I don't have or haven't already done, which may not say a lot for my powers of wishing, but it makes for a contented life. Not long after I got my place, I told my mother that she shouldn't feel too bad if anything happened to me, because I had everything I ever wanted (I wouldn't have said anything like that if I thought there were any possibility she might think I was suicidal!). If I'm lucky, I'll get to go on doing the things I like, plus new things I haven't even thought of yet, for another 40 or 50 years - but if I don't, it won't be any kind of tragedy. I've had my share and then some already.
Normally, maybe 99.995% of the time, that's how I think. (I imagine I'd feel very differently if I had young children I wanted to see grow up.) There have been exactly three times in the last few years that I've explicitly thought, "I hope nothing happens to me before..." The first was after Mom had bought our first three alpacas but before they were delivered to my place a few weeks later, after being shorn. I drove around during those weeks thinking, "I hope I live to see the alpacas come home!" (Just reiterating, this is a cheery thought to me, not a morbid one! It's like saying everything is great, but there's going to be a cherry on top.)
The second was in January this year, driving home from sarren's with her Persuarders DVDs in the car, thinking that if I were in a bad accident on the way, my last thought would be, "Oh no! I didn't get to see all the Persuaders episodes!"
The third, of course, was today. So, I got up from my desk at work at 2:31 in the afternoon, drove into the city, parked the car, walked to JB Hi-Fi, seized their one copy of the full-priced box set of seasons 1-4, bounced to the checkout queue hugging it, admired Alan Shore's face on the cover while I was waiting, made cheery conversation with other people in line, floated back to my car, returned to the office full of enthusiasm for our beautiful city and the lovely weather, then later drove very carefully home, where I watched the best bits from two episodes I read the transcripts of yesterday.
Now, I can again die happy if need be. I have no idea whether this is a typical person's experience of life (but would suspect not).
I do quite a lot of driving on a two-lane highway with some pronounced bends and it often occurs to me how easily my life could be extinguished by someone straying over to the wrong side of the road. I make a point of thinking about this, too, since I think one of the most interesting things about being human is getting to face the thought of your own death (assuming you have no belief in an afterlife, which I imagine would significantly dilute this issue). Normally this thought doesn't bother me much - I've had a great life and it's already been much longer than many people get, particularly if you look at the full timespan of human history. There's very little I want that I don't have or haven't already done, which may not say a lot for my powers of wishing, but it makes for a contented life. Not long after I got my place, I told my mother that she shouldn't feel too bad if anything happened to me, because I had everything I ever wanted (I wouldn't have said anything like that if I thought there were any possibility she might think I was suicidal!). If I'm lucky, I'll get to go on doing the things I like, plus new things I haven't even thought of yet, for another 40 or 50 years - but if I don't, it won't be any kind of tragedy. I've had my share and then some already.
Normally, maybe 99.995% of the time, that's how I think. (I imagine I'd feel very differently if I had young children I wanted to see grow up.) There have been exactly three times in the last few years that I've explicitly thought, "I hope nothing happens to me before..." The first was after Mom had bought our first three alpacas but before they were delivered to my place a few weeks later, after being shorn. I drove around during those weeks thinking, "I hope I live to see the alpacas come home!" (Just reiterating, this is a cheery thought to me, not a morbid one! It's like saying everything is great, but there's going to be a cherry on top.)
The second was in January this year, driving home from sarren's with her Persuarders DVDs in the car, thinking that if I were in a bad accident on the way, my last thought would be, "Oh no! I didn't get to see all the Persuaders episodes!"
The third, of course, was today. So, I got up from my desk at work at 2:31 in the afternoon, drove into the city, parked the car, walked to JB Hi-Fi, seized their one copy of the full-priced box set of seasons 1-4, bounced to the checkout queue hugging it, admired Alan Shore's face on the cover while I was waiting, made cheery conversation with other people in line, floated back to my car, returned to the office full of enthusiasm for our beautiful city and the lovely weather, then later drove very carefully home, where I watched the best bits from two episodes I read the transcripts of yesterday.
Now, I can again die happy if need be. I have no idea whether this is a typical person's experience of life (but would suspect not).