On Death
Some would say we are a society preoccupied with death. The fact is we are not nearly as concerned with death as we should be. We live in an almost constant malaise of denial about our mortality. Death becomes like a 30th birthday to a twelve year old--a fate so distant as to approach fiction. Oh, but it is coming my friends. Hard and fast. Distract yourself with the pleasant accoutrements of life all you like. No number of handjobs and frappuccinos will protect you from your inevitable dirt nap. And when it comes, it will take everything. Every speck of your accumulated humanity extinguished in an instant. Your existence no longer a function of self, but rather a function of memory for those left behind. I should hope you're growing concerned.
And what are we doing about this? Sure we're working on the cure for cancer, AIDS and the Ebola virus, but isn't this just a further attempt to delay the inevitable? I don't quite understand. Why is the predominant paradigm 'why die now when you can die later' when it should really be 'let's not fucking die AT ALL.' Fuck Jerry's Kids and the March of Dimes and Homeland Security, I want to see the National Department of Never Fuckin' Dyin'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't the instantaneous vaporization of our consciousness take priority over the dildo you just tried to smuggle through LAX?
But what of the soul? You mean that thing we can't touch, taste, hear, see, smell, photograph, biopsy, or x-ray that just happens to make everything okay? You mean that invisible escape-pod that will jettison itself from this mortal coil along with all your happy memories, and ultimately soft-land on a cloud where you will be forever handsome? Right, the soul. Are you really supposed to believe all this?
What if I were to tell you...yes. Yes, you have a soul. Yes, life is fair. And, yes, I can prove it.
You see, there is too much symmetry not to be the product of intention. Look around you. See the inevitable and inescapable truth that all things live and die by the same equation. Such an obvious congruence that we all seem to miss. You beg God for a modicum of hope for eternity, and she drowns you in an ocean of assurance. Open your eyes. Do you not see sunrise and sunset, the seasons as they pass and the inexhaustable harvest of life from death? Are you really so recalcitrant and jaded as to believe an omniscient god incapable of metaphor? Wake up asshole, God is winking at you.
But what now? Are you in need of further guidance? Forget the atheists and the devout. They are the same, only choosing different means to deny their ignorance. The atheist being so frustrated with the answer as to deny the question, and the devout man being so frightened of the question as to fabricate the answer. At least the atheist euthanizes the debate, while the devout man resorts to the masturbatory exercise of scripture--a two-thousand year old bouillabaisse of accumulated self-serving bullshit bearing no resemblance to its original conception.
Now armed with the breadcrumbs of God's divine metaphor, it's time to embrace the agnostics and their brass balls of admitted blissful ignorance. From here you can begin to understand that life is not something to be successfully navigated, but rather something to be artfully failed. Granting the inevitability of our impending collective deaths, life is very much a meaningless proposition in and of itself. Thus, quite simply, its purpose can only be our performance in the face of its limitations.
They're watching, stupid.
Some would say we are a society preoccupied with death. The fact is we are not nearly as concerned with death as we should be. We live in an almost constant malaise of denial about our mortality. Death becomes like a 30th birthday to a twelve year old--a fate so distant as to approach fiction. Oh, but it is coming my friends. Hard and fast. Distract yourself with the pleasant accoutrements of life all you like. No number of handjobs and frappuccinos will protect you from your inevitable dirt nap. And when it comes, it will take everything. Every speck of your accumulated humanity extinguished in an instant. Your existence no longer a function of self, but rather a function of memory for those left behind. I should hope you're growing concerned.
And what are we doing about this? Sure we're working on the cure for cancer, AIDS and the Ebola virus, but isn't this just a further attempt to delay the inevitable? I don't quite understand. Why is the predominant paradigm 'why die now when you can die later' when it should really be 'let's not fucking die AT ALL.' Fuck Jerry's Kids and the March of Dimes and Homeland Security, I want to see the National Department of Never Fuckin' Dyin'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't the instantaneous vaporization of our consciousness take priority over the dildo you just tried to smuggle through LAX?
But what of the soul? You mean that thing we can't touch, taste, hear, see, smell, photograph, biopsy, or x-ray that just happens to make everything okay? You mean that invisible escape-pod that will jettison itself from this mortal coil along with all your happy memories, and ultimately soft-land on a cloud where you will be forever handsome? Right, the soul. Are you really supposed to believe all this?
What if I were to tell you...yes. Yes, you have a soul. Yes, life is fair. And, yes, I can prove it.
You see, there is too much symmetry not to be the product of intention. Look around you. See the inevitable and inescapable truth that all things live and die by the same equation. Such an obvious congruence that we all seem to miss. You beg God for a modicum of hope for eternity, and she drowns you in an ocean of assurance. Open your eyes. Do you not see sunrise and sunset, the seasons as they pass and the inexhaustable harvest of life from death? Are you really so recalcitrant and jaded as to believe an omniscient god incapable of metaphor? Wake up asshole, God is winking at you.
But what now? Are you in need of further guidance? Forget the atheists and the devout. They are the same, only choosing different means to deny their ignorance. The atheist being so frustrated with the answer as to deny the question, and the devout man being so frightened of the question as to fabricate the answer. At least the atheist euthanizes the debate, while the devout man resorts to the masturbatory exercise of scripture--a two-thousand year old bouillabaisse of accumulated self-serving bullshit bearing no resemblance to its original conception.
Now armed with the breadcrumbs of God's divine metaphor, it's time to embrace the agnostics and their brass balls of admitted blissful ignorance. From here you can begin to understand that life is not something to be successfully navigated, but rather something to be artfully failed. Granting the inevitability of our impending collective deaths, life is very much a meaningless proposition in and of itself. Thus, quite simply, its purpose can only be our performance in the face of its limitations.
They're watching, stupid.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
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whatcha thinking of getting?
[Edited on Aug 27, 2005 7:42PM]