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Medical advances mean life is no longer fragile, so rather than treating it as fleeting and temporary, we instead seek to prolong it as long as possible (maybe forever?). Death, rather than a normal part of life, has been relegated to back rooms, alleyways, and sterile hospital rooms, discussed only in terms of sadness and tragedy. Never joyful, never inevitable, never simply what is and what must be...but always tragic and unfortunate.
Is that why we rush around, seeking to do, and create, and achieve, more, more, ever more? For it cannot be for the joy of doing - no, these fires that burn within the human ego yearn for eternal consequence, a sense that all has not been--as it so clearly has been--in vain. To do less would be to...what? To acknowledge our own insignificance, impermanence, complete and utter pointlessness? Well, yes...
"He had a good life." What does this mean. How can one define it? Is it intended for the dead or the living? If the former, he can't hear you, but if the latter, what of it? Good life means nothing. Life means nothing. Nothing. Is it wrong to to define life as an illusion, trapped forever in an infinite eternity of nothingness?
Hyperbolic? Sure, but that's the point. Can you argue? Where am "I"? Where did I come from, and where will I go?
Not forever, you say - life is definitely not forever. But is it not? Can you imagine a world without..."you"? Sure, you say - I study history, I dream of the future. But who is the observer? If not you, then...who? Life is forever...for you. Even if you don't actually exist...
The easy thing to say is that there are no answers. But that's not it. The answer is right in front of us, stalking us, making us squirm. All this could be a figment of some alien dream, or a "test" by some all-powerful deity...or maybe "reality" is just as we imagine it. Doesn't matter. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And the big wheel keeps on turning...
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1. Reminds me of one of the monk's musings in "Amongst White Clouds:" "Why are people in this world so busy? Just for this one breath . . . they say 'busy, busy, mine, mine' . . . busy a whole lifetime for 'Me.' When this breath is cut off, you let go of the whole universe . . . why not let go from the start?"
ReplyDelete2. More importantly, where's the JPEG of a cab for this one? You're getting lazy . . .
I like it. You reminded me of a thought...of mine!
ReplyDeletePerhaps since the universe is immortal (if it came from nothing then obviously what we're calling "nothing" most be something), our egos in following their survival instinct and in gaining hope from the observation the universe never dies, push us to seek immortality.
"Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee."
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