So, maybe it is the weather or the season or the sleep deprivation, or the fact that many people are dying these days, but I've been suffering with a mundane but sticky case of existential horror. I was hauling a half-dozen water-logged barrels of dead leaves to the curb, and thought, "gee, why can't leaves be more durable? How come the tree needs to lose them and regrow them every year, and I have to rake them up every year? Inefficient! Grr."
Then in meeting, whenever I closed my eyes I was filled with images of everyone I love eventually dying, and their precious bodies turning to dust. And then I looked around the meeting room, and saw everybody there turning to dust. And then I watched a documentary about the 80's club scene in New York, and almost everyone featured in the movie was dead from some combination of drugs and AIDS. And then I was in my 100-student strong psychology class, and realized, "in less than 80 years, everyone in this room will be dead." Then I went home and read some bible out loud to my walls, including the part where God is solidly cursing Adam "you are dirt, and to the dirt you shall return." And I thought, what a waste. And then I realized that it's not exactly a waste, since all these someday-to-be-dead people are loving, reproducing, producing, etc, but then I thought well, what extravagance then. Imagine buying a new car each morning, driving it to work and back, and then sending it off that evening to the junkyard to be scrapped for metal for a new car. Imagine a whole new set of people every generation.
But I figure if God can afford it, then that's cool.
"We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand."
Jennie Jerome Churchill
ETA: I sound like a total materialist in this post and I don't necessarily mean that, but I haven't got any coherent information about the afterlife, so I'm just talking about the here and now and the dying part. I also mean this post in sort of a "woah" sense rather than a doom sense. Doom. Doom Doom.
7 comments:
I remember similar thoughts, might have them again someday, the positive thing is the fact that these thoughts are a symptom of thy hope, in thinking what a waste death is, thee is thinking, how I really treasure life.
I used to think about all the songs I gathered up, all that I learned about boat building, and for a time, I thought the important thing was that we pass these things on, then I came to realize, as, for example, I see many maritime trades being lost, that well, what is the use, and what a loss, and thought of ... well, why loose Einstein's brain...
Then, I thought of the loss of certain human wisdom, what was Neanderthal culture, frame of mind ... and that someday the earth itself will die...
All I can tell you is that as worry of this kind passes, it is because thee treasures all a little less. So, is it a comfort for me to tell thee that it is a good thing to wish these things not to pass on?
I don't say these things our of hopelessness or sadness, or anything other than age brings acceptance. Perhaps it is getting use to many dear friends who have died, and one can't mourn them forever. And, knowing that some who were very missed are still gone, and others hardly made a dent in their passing, and it puts thy life in great perspective. The more thee does not do because of fear, and or weakness, the less thee will be missed, the smaller the hole thee leaves behind thee, and to leave that hole is a good thing.
Having fallen a little out of my life, for a time, I also have come to know that part of my coming to terms with mortality is understanding how little I matter as I get older. Not a whole lot of people miss me when I am gone. But, thee is working very hard, and lovingly on thy place on this planet -- has lots of loving family, has much to worry about the world about, so this might be an odd way to put it ... but it is a very good thing that thee worries about mortality around thee.
I guess the bottom line is life is good and worth missing, so don't waste it. Smile, heck, laugh line a looney while thee may.
=)
lor
(like a looney, I meant to write)
On a happier note... apparantly nothing is wasted or gone for ever, time is an illusion, so somewhere, all thy happiest moments and those of the world, still are happening...
If you take off from the title of your post and repeat the word "doom" until it can be used in lieu of "boom" as an onomatopoeia for the sound of a kettle drum.........at the very end of your post you can seque right into "Also Spach Zarathustra".
Of course ,it is still early and I haven't had much coffee yet.
*grins*
I've been thinking about thy post ... and well, this might be a happy thought on passing of time or not. When it is a clear night, go out and look at the stars. The nearest, the moment thee is seeing, was a moment when dinosaurs were new on the earth. Time moves at the speed of light. And thy happiest moment, is ... in that sense, an arms length, no, a hair's breath and less... between that star time and this breath's moment. When we are released from the grip of the illusion of time, all that we were is an instant away, all of the time of humanity is a short hop towards that star. Beyond this illusion of time, perhaps nothing is wasted.
Hay! Isn't there a birthday coming up soon, coconut harvest time!
In my bookcrate lives a very excellent book that raises much of the same question (titled "Biological Exuberance"): it appears that nature itself is made for celebration, like dances. There isn't any reason for peacocks to have such feathers, or humans to appreciate music, or beauty to be so abundant: only that life rejoices in itself (apparently). Life itself is a waste - is so wasteful. We burn our candles at both ends.
But that may well be the point.
Happy Thanksgiving........here's hoping that your day is redolant with the aromas of good food, your home abuzz with the company of caring friends and your heart filled with the joy of this life.
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