August 11th, 2008
Eclipse
Would you rather it mattered what we do, if the outcome is doomed anyway? We are all going to die.
Transcriptorial: and when the end comes it won't matter / where we all went wrong
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I’m just trying to have as much fun as I can. Just trying to live while I can. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but if I spend too much time thinking about it, I’m gonna waste the time I have right now.
And I don’t see death as the end. I dunno. I just don’t fear or think about it at all.
i tell myself i live/am trying to live that way, but i don’t. i’m scared (of not planning for the future) despite myself.
We don’t know what is on the other side of “the end”. But there will be something since life is energy and energy can only be transformed, never destroyed.
It doesn’t matter what comes as long as we make now count. The past is gone, the future is not yet. Now is all we have.
Live.
I think that what is after life is hiding in plain sight. It’s perfectly clear what happens after death, but no one wants to admit it. It’s the circle of life my friend, we die, and our energy is passed to the ground, we become the food for the worms and the plants, that’s where our energy goes. It gets transferred right on up the food chain. It’s simple.
it’s not hiding insomuch as people refuse to belive such a thing. if people belive theres nothing after death whats the point of life?
the point is living, loving.
Would you rather it mattered what we do, if the outcome is doomed anyway? We are all going to die. What are you doing about it?
The Question:
Would you rather it mattered what we do?
Does this mean you entertain the possibility that something – anything – can exist or can be done without it having any importance at all?
Nothing can exist without a purpose. The purpose may not be clear to you or somebody may agree it is unimportant, but is it really? Won’t it matter to anyone at all?
Or does the statement : Would you rather it mattered what we do? translate to – Would you rather that what you do make an impact?
If it’s the preceding interpretation, yes, I would want that what I do would at least have some sense, it can be useful, it can be productive. I would never be so presumptuous as to think what I’d do would result to world peace but I believe that each little act of kindness, each little positive creation will change the world. (Technically, each microscopic change will effect the composition of a whole).
If my paradigm results to me not caring about what I do, and the same goes for other people too – what will happen? Won’t there be chaos? An influx of careless abandon and justified irresponsibility?
If we don’t think that what we do should matter at all, what’s the purpose of living then?
Isn’t this outlook a tad defeatist?
The Premise:
if the outcome is doomed anyway? We are all going to die.
death = doom?
Why be afraid of dying when you know you’ve given your best while living?
Or flipping the coin, why be afraid of dying when it’s living that may cause doom, and death becomes the escape from it?
To some, death may just be a respite…
To some, the transitional phase to a better mode of existence.
The action:
What are you doing about it?
Giving my best shot whatever my situation is. It’s not the result nor the recognition or the accolade that matters. It’s self-actualization (the knowledge that I did my best and tried to finish the race – that’s what matters. )
If I don’t finish the race, so be it. If I win, that’s a bonus (a gift).
If I lose – well the possibility of losing in terms of not being ahead of everyone else is a fact of life….. Desiderata
I have long believed rigorous atheists to be among the most deeply theological thinkers. All flesh is grass. If we let nihilism slip from our grasp we might keep on sitting through pointless slaughter. God is the righteous weight of history. History is the ground of love’s transcendent freedom. We can meaningfully cast off everything we love, and live happily in the moment, and even forget ourselves, precisely insofar as we have surrendered to history.
What we do in this life? The future? Matters deeply. Blessed are the children.
Of course everything matters, we will remembered for what we did, our children will grow up in the world we leave, and support us in our old years. And between the possibilities of reincarnation and medical science, I wouldn’t assume that you won’t have to deal with the long term consequences of your short term decisions personally. We can make a sustainable world or drive civilization to rubble. Lazy people will make any excuse not to change. We’ve got the knowledge and the capacity to turn this ship around, but anyone proposing that people and society needs to change is promptly ignored.
I found this ironic now because my dog died today and i felt so weak. I could not do anything for him. So the only thing that matters to my dog Buddy is freedom from his pen and walk one more time in the yard with my family. He finally get his wish and im happy. The quote touches my heart.
We are temporary creatures, and the instinct of survival, while keeping us alive, actually makes us resist our very nature if we give it too much thought. Resist, futilly, of course.
I believe the right way to live is to embrace our temporariness, embrace the inevitability of death, embrace the fact the most valuable resource we all have is time.
Embrace, then move forward. To brood about what you are not is to not be what you are.
Fantastic sentiment, and so true.
To Alice: As a pet owner who still feels a hole in his heart over the four-years-ago loss of his cat, my hear goes out to you on Buddy’s passing. Here’s something I just read about the love and loss of a pet that I hope will help:
“But I also feel like, in some ways, [the death of my cat Gabby] was my fault. They say youu cut several years off a cat’s life when you let them go outside. So why did I let her, in a congested urban neighborhood? In some ways, I was still trying to make up for how I treated her after the “incident,” and to show I still loved her in the pre-incident way. I now relaized, and for some reason didn’t realize it then, that pets don’t really have memories. They respond to how they’re being treated at the moment, and that years of kindness and loyalty can erase a couple of nasty afternoons or weird, semiperverted nights. Yes, you should live ever moment like it’s your last, and all that, but pets are around for even less time, and we should appreciate them fully before they’re gone.
Gabby used to sit on my laptop. Sometimes, I’d leave it open and she’d sit on the keyboard and really screw things up for me. For eleven years, I made it a habit of running into my office and making sure my laptop was okay. It still occasionally occurs to me that I should check.
But she isn’t there.”
– Neal Pollack, THINGS I’VE LEARNED FROM WOMEN WHO’VE DUMPED ME
Best,
Den
Death is only a boundary between lives. Whatever you do in your current life may or may not affect that life, but it may also build up karma for your next life.
Damn the Nicæan Council and the rest of the mistranslators of the Bible for excluding references to re-incarnation, to forward their own greed. End the falseness of King James, use modern translations of older (preferably from before 350AD) Bible copies, or use the Baghvad-Gita.
I’m staying happy.