i am going to do something that could very well be the death of my 'blogger ego'. I am going to ask a question and i want some answers. i am guessing that at the most maybe 3 people visit here regularly, with maybe 3 or 4 more visiting more sporadically. if you should be one of those, humor me! if i had a roommate i would have come home tonight and asked that person. i could call a few of you and ask, but since it is friday i doubt many of you would answer your phones and i could try to remember to ask later but i will forget.
here it goes:
If you died right now, and were given the option of coming back to this earth-would you? I am not talking about reincarnation (well I am) and I am not asking you to think about the 'afterlife'. Assume it's great, but that since we live in eternity you will have an eternity to enjoy the afterlife, is there anything that would ever make you choose to come back to this? As a human. Suffering the same, less or worse than you do now....I think about it sometimes.
I think about it for different reasons-misery or wonder mostly....and I usually think that if I could I would come back to see real space travel or what human beings can accomplish in the future or... how we will handle global warming. It's sick but today I actually thought to myself-"what if global warming got us to the point that earth was mostly water? what would that be like?" I would want to see it. We would adjust. There would be tragedy and sadness. But there is that now. Then we would use these amazingly inventive minds and create a way to go on in a WATER WORLD!......and I want to see it. I have't seen the Al Gore movie yet and I think I probably should but I guess what I am saying is even as miserable as I feel sometimes, wallowing in self-pity and longing for release from money trouble, or lonliness, or conflict or loss, through all of my hardships, sheer human existence has always fascinated me. I'd go see the dinasoars too if I could. I would for all the pain, try it again, I think. At least, that is my answer today.
8 comments:
Just so you know, I come to this blog regularly. Well, as regularly as there is a new post... :)
I wouldn't choose to come back. I just think the next world will be more interesting. I know I'm not supposed to think about that according to your request, but I also know that in the next world I'll be able to look at this world and still see what's going on...not like this world where you can't see ahead to the next one. I hope that makes sense. Good question, though!
i think i'd pass on a chance to do it all again here.
kari
p.s. i read your blog all the time. but, you knew that.
i agree with k and lacey. i think ive had enough tests for about 3 life times and wouldnt mind putting some distance between me and them in the next world. although our spirits will continue to progress, it is my sincerest hope that the tests will bare no semblage to the ones on this plane.
p.s. i think my visits to this site (like many others) would border on stalking. ask lacey, patrick and kari. stalk them on the regular;-p just the other day i contemplated sending you one of those blog letters like: "dear ten percent tip. we haven't heard from you in a while. please show us some love and send us one of your thought-provoking entries. love, your blog stalker." but i wasn't sure if that would be bad form;-p
ekundayo's dad gave a talk a few years ago about the whole notion that this earth is for learning and developing the skills we need in the next world. so i guess to the extent that i might want more chances to work on developing certain skills - like humility, or kindness to the imagined other - i might choose to come back here...
seeing the future, seeing human ingenuity, seeing us be awesome -- i think i get the draw of that. but (and you kind of allude to this) there's just as much ingenuity, innovation and awesomeness happening all around us right now. i guess i wouldn't mind coming back down the road to see what a more unified world looks like, to see what America is like when we more fully honor and respect women, first nations and people of African descent looks like. but there's pockets of all of these things to be found around us right now. ...just so.
-lev /banging my head against the PHP
I also assume we would be able to look back into this world as well, Lacey, and I also guess that the next world will be unimaginably interesting....but I also feel that time would be different there, that a lifetime here is a blink of an eye there....and yes, I was alluding, Lev-Seeing us down the line would be awesome, and to be in it, not just observing it, might be really cool. And I really like the idea that I may come back to further develop some skills and virtues too!
But let me draw an analogy-some time ago I was in a conversation about the next world and preparation for it (ala the topic of Ekundayo's dad's presentation) and we drew an analogy our 9 months time in the womb, where we are wholly ourselves but still 'preparing' for this world. And do our concsious minds exist at that time? Surely, but if we spoke baby womb language and asked a yet unborn baby to comprehend what is coming, they would not be able to do it.
So imagine this is our earthly womb....we spend so much painful time here developing and learning and loving-ultimately preparing ourselves for the next life, right?
But when we leave will our ability to look back/down be like when you go to the doctors office and look at pictures of womb? If the womb was infinitely majestical and awesome, (and I am not sure it isn't) wouldn't it be a little cool to go back inside? Especially as nine months is nothing compared to a lifetime of months, and....ok well, maybe this is just too weird of analogy.
I guess the real question I should be asking is are you ever stopped in your tracks with awe for what beauty is in this world? Are you ever stupefied by the breadth of the good things of human achievement? Are you ever just purely glad to be alive and breathing? Are you excited like I am for what change can bring? I certainly am. I literally have moments where I am stunned with joy. True they are VERY fleeting-more so lately....
But what this all ultimately stems from is as a child I used to live and breath sci fi and fantasy and I used to wish so hard I could travel in space, meet alien life forms and ride dragons....and a part of me believes that all that is possible on this earth of ours, just....you know, not in my lifetime! So I would love to be a part of it in some way some how.....
Hmm...I don't think I'd come back either, though, (and I'll echo Lev here), I'd like to see what we'll accomplish in the future. For some reason, though, I feel like we'll find this world just about as interesting as a mothers womb when we pass on over to the next world: been there, done that, irrelevant now.
That said, you should definitely check out "An Inconvenient Truth". But also, you should check out the even-better Kevin Costner documentary, "Waterworld".
Leslie, this is a difficult question. i thought you were going to ask me what my favorite flavour of lollipop is or what color underwear i like best.
hell, i don't if i would come back. Would i be the same person in the same life with the same friends? Like would i just pick up where i left off if i step in front of a bus tonight? i mean, yeah, provided that God was like "oh, it was just a mistake, you can choose now", i would come back.
However, if it was like i had to start all over, no way. No freakin' way.
i havea suspicion that, after death, we may very well have an idea of what's gonna happen with global warming. And everything else. So, the curiosity thing won't entice me back. But on the whole, i'm quite excited about that next life, so i think when i get there, i'm just gonna go ahead and stay.
oh, and Andrew. i'm a little hurt that you don't find wombs fascinating. i'm quite excited about mine, thank you very much.
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