An absurd line of thinking I have been exploring lately is this: What if (no matter what religion you subscribe to) when you die the wonderful afterlife you were promised is gone. Now I'm not saying that it didn't exist but that it has either moved or has been "re-formatted". The best analogy I can come up with is this: When a acorn falls off of a tree it hopes to find a nice piece of earth to burrow itself into and start its new life, Now lets say that the earth is long gone and the acorn finds itself landing in a parking lot. The acorn is basically doomed to roll around the parking lot for the rest of its existence. The acorn would have no idea that once it left the tree that the promise land it had always believed would be there would be altered. I think that somewhere in my mind I fear that when I die my soul will float off to wherever its going only to smack right into the proverbial parking lot and spend the rest of eternity floating around on the surface. This brings me to a another line of thinking. What am In the dark about as a 27 year old. When you are a child you believe in certain absolutes, the most obvious examples are Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, more complex and less absolute are issues like believing that television commercials are public service announcements. When we get older we realize that these things are completely false and its really just a part of growing up etc. But what if this doesn't only happen when we leave childhood but at other parts of our life as well. How do I know (as a 27 year old) that once I hit 30 I will be let in on truth about some of the things I fundamentally hold to be true (also at other points down the line as well). Of course no one who has passed those ages would divulge the truth, the same way you wouldn't (or shouldn't) tell a small child that there is not Santa Claus (they probably wouldn't believe it anyway). So getting back to the original point what if we spend our whole lives believing in something to be an unshakable truth only to hit a paved afterlife.
I am aware that there are some religions that don't believe in afterlife, I was just using the basic Christian "heaven" type framework for my example.
I also realized that this is full of "What If's", that's just the mood I'm in today
tags:ideas, religion, what if
These are very important questions.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's interesting that you are 27 years old now: When I was 27 years old I was a professional photographer in NYC, living my dream job. I've had pictures in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Vibe, etc. Then, out of the blue, as it were, I was hit by a car. That's not how things were supposed to happen.
But, I found out that even though I didn't land on the Earth, and landed somewhere else than I thought I would (as you state in your acorn analogy), where I landed was more beautiful than I had previously been.
No, it wasn't fun going through the recovery of my accident (5 surgeries to this day--one of which I am recovering from as I write this). But, the accident put me on my true path: teaching. I love teaching fourth grade (although I can't do it right now because of said surgery).
My point is: maybe you will end up someplace different than you first imagined. But who's to say it will be a worse place? Maybe it will be 100 times better than you ever thought it could be!
p.s. I'm 36 years old now!
ReplyDeleteWhoa...you need to read my spooky post #7 and #5...a real life medium was able to connect to a spirit in a "not so happy place." You can read about that on my #7 spooky story.
ReplyDelete#5 deals with a guy who was in the hospital and gets a visit from a deceased grandfather.
I'm 32, and I too had my own near death experience. It's too personal for me to share, but maybe I will someday.
Remember that pension your grandparents always talk about? You know, the one you pay into all the time? Yeah, well, when we hit 65, how about you get in touch with me and we can have a good laugh over that one, eh?
ReplyDeleteWith my luck,when it's my time, I'll go up to the "afterlife" only to find it's closed for repairs.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are trying to say. When I saw "The Matrix" my mind wonder if we will wake up one day to realize that all we know now doesn't really exist?
ReplyDeleteBut, it isn't true. Maybe, you are in a crossroad and you don't know where you're heading. You've got to have faith and find the truth about life yourself and not listen to others. The truth is really out there. If you won't look for it, then you won't find it.
Cheers!