WeCroak - The app that reminds you five times a day that you're gonna die.

Saw this on Reddit and was intrigued. Read a couple of articles in NYTimes and the Atlantic. Macabre sounding but the premise is "The WeCroak app is inspired by a Bhutanese folk saying: to be a happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily."

It's actually pretty great. Basically you just get the reminder and it's meant to make problems in life seem insignificant and make you do more with your day. Stoicism apparently.

I've started doing a bunch of things in a positive way. One thing this weekend I used to love but hadn't done in five years. Saw the popup and just said yeah it's about time and had a great time.

It doesn't depress me at all. It just reminds me to have that enviable quality some people have where they just live life as best they can.

What ye reckon?

Strumms

If you lived in Bhutan you’d probably contemplate death 5 times daily. One of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.

Loafing Oaf

As with so much, the ancients got here first

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782774#Comment_119782774

Everyone talks about how they do Gross National Happiness, not GDP, but I guess no one actually says how that number is going.

On the face of it, I assume they're mostly grand. Spent the weekend around a very similar ethnic group in the back end of nowhere and they were all smiles as hard as their daily chores looked. Not at all what we would want, and missing all modern comforts, but doing what they've done for generations, but with some modern luxuries.

They'd definitely have more thoughts about self-preservation than we would. But it is how people lived for so long everywhere.

All being said, Mayo is lovely.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782774#Comment_119782774

It's no coincidence that the most religious countries in the world tend to be awful kips.

20Wheel

apparently at one stage it was all the rage to keep a skull on your desk, for the same purpose as this app.

anyone who didn't have a skull lying around would be considered a bit of a weirdo. well thats according to alan watts anyway. (so a pinch of salt you see)

personally i don't need such an app as my brain reminds me about death dozens of times a day, combined with various questions about why the fck am i doing this job, and whats the point of this any of this sht anyway. then more questions about reality, self, and whether a pistol shot is the answer. and so i end up back listening to watts and dharma talks.

so while this app is probably a great idea for some, for others it'll probably be a real downer, the thing that takes you out of your short break from misery, that brief time when you forget how sht everything is.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782793#Comment_119782793

Memento mori.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119782774#Comment_119782774

In Bhutan the king will give you a house and some land if you are stuck. Here our "king" does all he can to prevent you from getting a house and if you do manage to get one you'll be paying him and his lackeys for the rest of your days

YellowLead

I might just get that app. I’ve always loved a frequent graveyard visit to put things in perspective (not where people who have just died have been laid to rest as that’s too sad but old graves) - I find it extremely relaxing.

BrianD3

That might have benefitted me in my teens or early twenties when I frequently got wound up over trivial crap. My death seemed so far away in the distant future that I barely thought about it.

Now I'm middle aged and most of my parents' generation and some of my generation are dead. I don't need reminding that life is short and death awaits. Visit rip.ie multiple times per day and have been researching my family tree and graves of my ancestors.