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Yes I feel grief may at times you feel more good than sad, so I too feel it is to some extent a selfish response, but a natural response of emotions. That is unless of course, you fake it.

Mad Kally

That is unless of course, you fake it.

Well now, that wouldn't be grief would it?

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Another thing that ought to be taken into consideration is "national grief", if official 1 was an American then is he/she just grieving over the fact that it was largely American lives that were taken?, and would he/she still be grieving just as much if it were the similar sized Pentronias Towers in Kuala Lumpa, Malaysia that was attacked in exactly the same way thus resulting in the same body count. If Official 1 was Malaysian then the grief will surely hit a lot harder if the attack happened in his/her own country.

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Laurentius

AVE
Indeed, whether or not the mourner belongs to the same nation as the victims’ can tell a lot about the moral quality of his/her grief. The five-point chart is far from covering all essential aspects but it emphasizes the possibility of an involuntary immorality in grieving. As for the national feelings, I was just trying to avoid including anything that can remind of tribalism (i.e. national fundamentalism, ethnic fundamentalism, religious fundamentalism, etc.), as from the point where we’re all standing, this kind of intolerance looks equally selfish to us.
As I posted above:
I live in the inflamatory Balkans and once too often I've witnessed "national grief" as a form of concealed "national hatred" supported by the establishent. The outcome is widely known.
AVE

Vitae

Cy@N1dE;
It depends on one's relationship to the one for whom one grieves.

Perhaps because you 'think' you have lost 'part' of yourself 'forever.'

I would agree in part of Zar's answer that goes; '..You are losing a part of yourself--etc...You are losing the pleasure of the other's company.'

I would add thought and experiences of you; and your thoughts and experiences of the other person.

But I would contend that also 'how' you think you have lost that part of yourself does indeed contribute to the enormity of your 'grieving.'

Can you be certain the dead aren't suffering at all? Can you be certain that they are dead?

There are worst things to fear than 'death.'

sentinel00;

I agree here with Laurentius;
quote; 'one does not need to philosophize too long to realize that grief may or may not br selfish, according to one's priorities.'

But I would add a qualifier; "And according to the priorites of the one who is dying."

sentinel00;
Agreed.


Kachana;
It seems to me that everyone deals with death and grief in a different way. It could for example, change people's behaviour in a way that makes them less intimate and caring as a 'protectionist' defensive mechanism so as to avoid the same 'experience' of 'grief' again.

Zar;
Perhaps One cannot say this of everyone's relationships.

Perhaps the 'negative response' (which may actually turn out to be a positive one)is not only for our loss, but also for the loss of the life of the deceased.

Perhaps this would depend on;

. the manner of the loss
. the intimacy of the relationship
. the length of the relationship
. the requests the person 'dying' makes of you
. the abilities of the living
. the tolerance for watching/experiencing pain


alli;

How did you do this? Was it based on the conditioning of not being comforted by your partner alone or other measures?

I am asking in an attempt, feeble as it may seem, at offering a suggestion.

I'm not certain that its at all possible.
Six months is a very short time but then that depends on the individual and circumstances.

I would not presume any wondrous insights on this matter, except can offer this suggestion in the light of some 'experience/thought' in this matter, from one 'thinker' to another 'thinker';

Perhaps it would be a helpful question to ask yourself at this stage;

"Is it more painful for me now, not to be comforted by my partner when I cried/cry or is it more painful to remove the mental/emotional block in thinking of my dad?"

This question may or may not be helpful to you.
Also, the word, 'comforted' means lots of different things to different people. It may also be painful for your partner to watch you 'cry.'
Somehow a balance needs be struck.

What you need only you can know and you will make it happen.

This is, as you say, a process of healing for all.

BTW, don't concern yourself too much with labels;
'selfish' and 'selfishness' are in the eyes of the beholder. IOW, they are 'illusory dichotomies.'

I hope I have not said anything to offend. If so, it was unintentional you can be assured.

Laurentius;

Why is official 1 the least selfish of all, why not official 2, who grieves over the loss of someone with whom a relationship existed?

But if this is the case, would you be able to state this, if you could not express 'her perspective' AND know that she still does exist in some form in you?

Have you not noticed any similarities even in some differential form of 'perspectivism' between yourself and your mother?

I ask because I have noticed these similarities between myself and a deceased one, stubborn !similarities.

Consider for a moment, that perhaps it is not from the point of your own relief/comfort, but from the 'vantage perspective' of being her offspring and of your understanding 'thought/experience' of her existence reciprocated in you.


worldcitizen

logansluf

to alli:

a little over a year ago my sister died after a long struggle with multiple sclerosis this happened less than a month after i found out that i had the same disease. i mention this because for a while i tried the same thing you are doing, block the death(and her) from my mind. this did not let me deal with a lot of issues with her life and my own. things got bad for a while my life took a considerable downswing because i had not allowed myself to grieve. selfish though it may be none of us can survive without being at least slightly selfish.

my other sister, seeing the effects all of this was having on me, then did one of the most monumental things any one has ever done for me. she got together every single home movie, picture, and various scrapbook material relating to my sister and her son and brought them to my house. together we spent hours laghing and crying and remembering everything we possibly could about our sister. it was probably the most emotional day i have ever had. it was also a turning point of sorts. now having completely dealt with my loss i have a chance to move on. so when my grandmother died last november the same problem did not arise i was able to grieve and remember and move on without the prolonged turmoil.

i would agree that greiving=healing. that is why i am telling you this, because after having truly greived over my loss i am now able to rejoice in every memory i have of both my sister and my grandmother. though it brings a tear to my eye when i think of them, it also brings a smile.

this particular method may not be right for you, i could even be way off the mark in presuming you have not greived. but i still thought i might say something.
never forget those you love, they are a part of you

Jane Marple

Grief is a selfish feeling, that's true. Nobody likes to loose anything, specially those you love. You like them, you want to be with them and your pissed of if their going on one way trip to the underground. It's normal, it's reasonable!

You only fear what you don't know. So, if you don't know what happens when your dead... your fear death. Religions solved this matter whith the idea of afterlife, they give the answer to one of mankind's biggest problem: the end of one's existence. It's hard to conceive, to any person (atheist ou theist), that this is all you get. Nobody wants to die (I sure don't!)... The thing is, atheist don't belive in afterlife because that's a religious idea and is quite absurd (we have an non-corporeal something that's going to leave our body and fly away... sure, and pigs can fly). I believe that afterlife doesn't exist (nor re-encarnations) and if it does... well, it's just not the same kind of life. So... Carpe Diem!

<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

Vitae

Jane Marple;

Are you certain? Do you speak only for yourself or are you generalizing about 'death?'

I would like to provide a differing perspective.

One may anticipate and look forward to what one 'doesn't know.'

One may fear what one 'knows' or thinks one 'knows' will happen.

Why?

Many thoughts come to mind.

Just one;

One might know that 'something' will cause one unbearable pain and that it might 'hit' one at anytime, incapacitating one's ability to 'function' as one has been used to functioning.
It may also cause others unbearable pain.

If one 'knows', that this will occur, one may be 'justified' in fearing its occurrence.

Therefore one may be justified in 'fearing' what is 'known' more than one is justified in 'fearing' what in 'unknown.'

This is of course, leaving the concept of fearing FEAR itself aside.

Regards

Worldcitizen

crocodile deathroll

What sets human beings apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is the awareness of one's own mortality. It must of been a pretty rude awakening to that first human being who made that rather grim discovery that they personally are meet exactly the same fate as those purifying remains of flesh and bones being eaten by vultures and hyenas. So the first remedy to that plight was to bury the remains so carrion consuming animals will not eat them and give the grieving relative some solace that may one day be resurrected back to life, and those chances of an intact corpse buried deep in the ground would be much better than one digested inside the intestines of hyenas and vultures, nothing left, not even a single bone.

Others buried their dead for totally different reasons. They probably believed that by burying them they will bury the "evil spirits" which is what they thought at the time was behind all infectious diseases like measles, typhus, influenza, tetanus and peritonitis etc, and by burying them they would holt their deadly demonic possessions. Probably this is the reason why folklore has looked on the underground as the abode of wicked spirits.

In some eastern religions however, did the very opposite they practiced aerial burials, and quite ready to embraced the processes of nature by chopping up their dead relatives up into little pieces throwing the remains to the vultures and thus perpetuating the cycles of nature.

Of course humankind knew he/she was that he/she was going to die long before he/she knew why
Why? because we have outlived our purpose the pass on our genes to the next generation, and after we have dropped our ability to pass on out genes our bodies rapidly deteriorate, our telemeres get shorter and we decay and die. The fact there is a perfect natural reason why we die gives me a lot of solace and I personnally believe death is not the opposite to life but very much a part of it.
Paleolithic man was not to know that, but he did know that he was going to die, period. So religion was invented. <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

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I have a very similar opinion, I fear death because of its association with serious injury and even some minor injuries can be extremely painful. You only have to stubb your toe to know that and I just stubbed mine on the leg of a cast iron table a few minutes ago, and my toe is still throbbing

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