Forever

 Suppose everyone knew that nothing followed death. That is, when you die, you no longer are aware of anything, including the fact that you are dead. How would people then react to others and how would they live out their lives? Think of yourself as a thirteen year old who has come into this knowledge. Thirteen year olds are just beginning to come alive as adult humans. They are still kids, but have begun stepping into that wilderness called adulthood.

For one thing, they are at an early stage of deciding who they want to be when they grow up. Do I want to be a scientist, a teacher, a soldier, an engineer, or just a working dude with no special skills.  And then, they are also just beginning to look at girls differently. They may be attracted to girls, but not quite sure why.  And then, at some stage, they may begin to think about this business of life creation –yeah, making one of their own.

That’s kind of a standard process called growing up.  But mainly, as we “grow up” we have always had this vague feeling of forever. Yeah. I will grow up and do stuff and maybe reproduce, and then “move on”. But “move on” to what? Well, we never really give that much thought, do we?  The whole process of finding a lovely, hooking up, then cementing a relationship and maybe reproducing, is so complicated that we tend not to think much beyond that. Oh but then there’s organized religion. Yeah, even if you are not much of a faithful religious believer, we have all grown up with that mindset of “forever” that we kind of take it in our stride.  We will go on forever, one way or another.

But what would we do, if we came to realize – all of us – that there is no “forever” regarding us. NO, we may be lucky and forge a nice relationship with some sweety, and then reproduce someone who vaguely resembles us, but then it will all be over for US. Yeah, we will reach some life stage and then we will cease being. And worse yet, we will not know we have ceased being. Nope, it will be one day we are here, and the next we are no longer here, and we do not know we are no longer here.  How would that certain knowledge affect how we grow up, and how we interact with others. More, how might that certainty affect how we decide to do anything?  Suppose you knew for certain that you would reach some age and then cease to exist, AND you would never know you had ceased to exist. Would you still want to go on doing stuff?

The answer to that question might be, SURE, Of Course I would want to go on. But it might as easily be, Hmmm, No, I think not. What would be the point to that?  And if that were the case, then what would happen to civilizations? How much of what we decide, and what we do is dependent on a belief that we will be around in some ethereal form, like watching from above, to see and know what happens after we leave this earth?

It is at least an interesting question. Does all life depend on a belief that Life continues after death?  Hmmm, I wonder.

So, It’s Over?

I am dumbstruck looking at pictures of our globe. The pictures of France and Spain are quite enough to terrify anyone watching. But sitting here in Concord, North Carolina, with some moderate weather expected, one is tempted to sigh and then go on to the next Facebook picture. But then I observe a picture of our entire globe and see red indicating fires in almost every corner.  And the fires seem so fierce that hundreds of professional firefighters equipped with their modern trucks and planes, throwing water everywhere, seem completely incapable of even slowing down the fires. And then President Stupidhead, instead of gathering our resources to assist in at least reducing the fire damage, spends his precious time yelling at people, and throwing tariffs. Imagine, our Canadian neighbors are experiencing massive fires right on our border, and, instead of helping them, our dumbass president is throwing tariffs at them, and yelling at them for messing up our air quality.  And I note that our Pacific Northwest has begun seeing some of these fires. But again, he is doing nothing,

So, now, I begin to wonder, Are we at the end of an Earthly existence? If there is a God, is she walking away laughing at our idiocy? How, I wonder, do we compare with some of her creations on a planet in some other galaxy?  Because we seem to have brought on these firestorms. They are not accidental, but rather human-induced.  All of the varied money-sets who have for decades ignored the climate effects of our investment patterns, are now watching and doubtless blaming everyone but themselves.

So, maybe life is really ending on Earth. And Trump can finally cease his idiotic and illegal war against Iran. But to be fair, there is nowhere for Trump to go either. He cannot escape to a nearby galaxy, because we do not know how to do that. No, instead, he and his BFF Elon will have to sit in their air conditioned palaces as the walls of doom begin gathering about them. He doesn’t even drink wine, so he will not be able to pour a nice glass of Cabernet and toast Elon, by saying, “Well, friend, at least no one else will be able to survive this either. So here’s to us buddy”.

And then slowly, painfully, it will all end, and our little God will also disappear, because, after all, we invented her.

The End May Be Near

I was listening to a newscast yesterday and they began reporting on the weather in Europe, and, more specifically, France. They reported on extreme heat, extensive fires, and serious water issues in Paris. It sounded like France was collapsing. And I began thinking, maybe life is nearing its end. Perhaps we are at the end of a civilized life on Earth. We seem to be dealing now with extremes. Either some area is burning down, or the rains are flooding a different region. It’s as though there are no normals any longer.  And the people in charge seem not to want to discuss this thing called weather. And that may be because they would then be drawn into a discussion of all the man-made interventions that individually have now added up to a disaster. We won’t do anything about emissions control, so our emissions of stuff like carbon dioxide have continued to change the natural course of the weather. It all seems so unlikely, but now the full reality of our lack of interest in sensible controls over our own actions has begun taking root in drastically modifying our environment and, specifically, our climate.

The question in my mind now is, can we still modify our actions so as to return to “normal” patterns of climate, or is it too late? I fear the latter has taken hold.  Partly my conclusion here is governed by what I observe in our current government. Trump seems to have eliminated our entire health system of expertise—FDA, CDC, NIH, et all—so that we will no longer have any internal controls over disastrous public policies affecting the environment.  So now, he is guided by the idiots in his administration –so many idiots, so little time.

And whatever the level of yelling at Trump, he seems capable of ignoring all commentary from opposition forces.  I keep seeing postings about how someone is filing something that may cause him to be stopped, but then he just keeps on truck’n,

Now, I know that my gloomy mental state is partly due to my loving wife’s departure from this Earth. Yes, that has left me with a doomy view of our world. But, partly, Donald Trump keeps on acting stupidly and his political party has apparently given up on any kind of thinking that might affect his actions.  Might the rest of the world begin swerving away and leave America to its own rush to climate disaster? That is possible, since we really do seem to be the dumbest kids on the block.  But that picture I painted initially of France and its disastrous weather, raises serious questions in my mind. Have we already proceeded too far towards a climate disaster?  And my response? Maybe, and we still have a couple of years of the Donald pushing us in the direction of total Climate collapse and the end of Life on Earth. Fun, Huh?

Dying

 That Dying Thing

We sat there by her bedside, watching over her, with Erika doing the actual checking and administering pain meds as needed. We spoke with her and listened carefully to see if we could detect her voice trying to speak.  Then finally, she stopped breathing. Her brain gave out and she was gone. No more pain, but also no more life. And Carol was gone. Yes we use this term to imply a voyage of some kind. But in reality her voyage simply ceased.  Her brain ceased to function and that signals the end of life.

And then I sat there looking at her, or rather looking at what used to be Carol.  Because Carol, the longtime Love of My life, had just ceased to operate.  And I continued to function, thinking of her. I might speak with her, but she would no longer respond, because her brain had ceased to function.  And now, I was actually alone.  She is in my brain still, but she is all part with me. My brain is now Carol’s.

And now, weeks later, I still sense her presence. I will be sitting watching television, and I turn to her next to me to ask her something. But next to me is now empty.  Well, Midnight our cat might be next to me, but he does not speak in a language I comprehend.  And I go to sleep at night in our bed, still in my accustomed place on our bed. And then, in the middle of the night, I awaken slightly because I think I feel her moving next to me. But No, it is again Midnight.

And then I vaguely awaken. It is 5 o’clock, still too early, but my brain has begun to function, even if only half functioning.  But my awakening has begun.  And then I decide to awaken and arise. Now my brain begins to function.  But then, for the rest of the day, I will function with her at my side.  And I have begun to think of this phase as some early dying stage. I am still functional, but something is missing. Maybe the dying has begun. But how long will this last . . . until I actually die in X days/months/years? Maybe. Perhaps this is life AFTER losing the single most important thing in your LIFE. Odd  . . . very odd.