by Cookie » Sun Dec 16, 2012 6:08 am
Is the desire to be immortal caused by fear of annihilation or by fear of dying?
I'm not afraid to cease to exist because I know I'm not important in any way. Once I am gone the universe will go on as it always has, and I don't think anyone will miss me very much, but if anyone does I'm quite sure it won't be for any longer than their own lifespan There are so many people in the past who have lived and died and are completely unremembered and made no mark on the world. I don't know the name of my great-great grandparents. I don't know what they loved, what made them angry, what kind of mistakes they made, what kind of things they would have been willing to die for, or if they were afraid of death. There are so many millions of people like my great-great-grandparents that nobody remembers. What's wrong with being one of the forgotten? To me the idea of trying not to be forgotten is like some teenager holding up this anime they have just drawn and insisting it is deathless, immortal art when it is just a bad drawing of some chibi. Uh, no, there is nothing singular about me, or about you or about any of us.
I'm not looking forward to the idea of suffering when I die, and I figure it is probable that I'll suffer some severe pain when I die. Most people do. But every other bad thing I've gone through has come to an end and dying more than any other wretched experiences implies a finite situation, so I don't waste much thought on it. I have already gone through a few experiences which were decidedly wretched. Death is not entirely unwelcome to me as a result. Someday I will have the very last migraine in my life. Someday I will stop grieving for the people I've lost. Someday I will have said the last idiotic thing I ever say and nothing will ever embarrass me again. The bad side of death is obvious, but on a personal level there are also some good things about death.
But these two points are subjective. Just because I'm not afraid of death doesn't mean that death is not a fearsome thing to face. Just because I am content to vanish doesn't mean other people are content to do so.
For some reason, I am picturing a playground. And in this playground there is this cool tree-house. You can climb up to the top using ladders, or ropes or a ramp - maybe you use a swing to get up there, maybe there is some kind of an elevator you can use. There are a lot of cool ways to get up to the top. You can pick your own way up out of all the choices. Right at the top there is this platform, a crows nest that has an ice cream vending machine. You don't need to put money in. You just have to press the button and an ice cream bar will come out. As long as you are up at the top you can keep pressing the button to eat ice cream and look around the fantastic view, you can wave at people on the ground and they will wave back and someone with a camera will take pictures of you if you want, and there are flags flying from the corners of the crows nest and another machine that will play whatever music you like as long as you are up there. But there isn't very much room at the top and there are a lot of other kids behind you, on the rungs of the ladder, poised to swing up and leap onto the platform, all ready to get to the tip top and take their turn. But you don't want to go down. The only way down you see, is this slide, and once you start down the slide, well, you won't get any more ice cream and some other kid is going to change the music you picked, and that slide is steep, and there's a bump at the bottom, a big bump. It looks really scary. And you won't get to go up there again, either, it's a one shot deal, you can't climb up into the tree house more than once because the slide takes you right out of the playground, it puts you on the wrong side of the playground fence...
Wouldn't it be nice to just stay there, forever, up there at the top of the slide, eating ice cream bars, and waving at all the people, feeling the sun and the breeze, listening to that sweet, sweet music. You can do it, if you only refuse to go down. It can be your turn forever, and ever. You can be king of the castle and never let any other kid be higher than you. You can stay at the top, taller and higher than everybody.
By and by it's going to be night. All the other kids will have gone away. It's going to be cold, and you know ice cream bars aren't as much fun when you're so chilly that you've started shaking and you've already had a lot of them. And that music? It doesn't turn off. You can change the tune but you can't turn it off. Maybe it's going to rain. But it might even be too cold for it to rain. When the winter comes the snow will be falling onto you, up high there on your perch. Night and then day and then night, summer and then winter and then summer and winter again.
.
(even the soul needs to get powered...there's no perpetuum mobile)
