December 6, 1998
It is something very, very interesting, something fascinating, how alone we ultimately are in this world. In the end, it can make anyone despair and jump out of a high window. Each one of us goes about with a set of beliefs, and each set of beliefs is different from every other one in the world. Or is it? Perhaps it is possible to brainwash thousands of people into believing the same set without question to every last particular detail, but that seems unlikely. Even in societies that, to outsiders, seem very homogenous in their belief systems, say Moonies, Mormons, Hare-Krishnas, Fundamentalist Christians and Moslems, Amish and such, I would be surprised to find two of the same group agreeing on every point of their specific scriptures.
Now, for a free thinker like myself, finding an akin mind can be a lot more difficult. I can't even agree with my own woman or my mother, much less with my friends on the details of my worldview. What usually gets me in trouble is when I declare that I don't find it necessary to believe in the existence of a soul, in the sense of a conscience remaining after death. What does the whole question mean anyhow? It is a very pointless and unnecessary question to ask as the answer can only be known by dying. Yes, there are accounts of the beyond from people who died and a while later came back to life, but however candid their reports, they can't possibly be verified in any way. And their visions can be explained in ways that are satisfactory to belief systems that accept the existence of a soul, as well as to systems that don't.
In the end, this question is nothing but a distraction. But is seems that many people absolutely need to believe they have a soul or their lives lose all meaning. Just watch how they kick and yell as soon as you try to point out how unnecessary the idea really is. Watch how they refuse to listen, how many times they say "no", and how they protect themselves and refuse to argue any further. They need to believe that they existed in some fully conscious way before they were born, and that they'll continue to exist in the same way after death. Some feel reduced to something lower than human –as if there were such a thing– if you say the soul is an illusion, thereby denying soulfulness to other living beings. If they think humans have souls, why not animals and plants? Others think that they're working in this life toward their next life in some non-material realm or in a fresh incarnation. These seem to me the ones with the biggest egos. They can't give up their own existence. They are the ones who are most afraid of dying. They don't behave as they do because they understand it is the wisest way to behave, but because they expect to get something from their actions.
Give up the soul. Relinquish the urge to exist. Forgo your fear of not being. Live courageously!
Size: 2.75" x 3.5"
Year: 2007
Media: Watercolor
Price: Part of a larger piece. Not sold separately.
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8 comments:
it really doesn't matter which illusion we ascribe to, does it? even reversing an allegory may get us though the day.
I'm enjoying your work and thanks for the link to my blog washthebowl.
Hey, Craig Daniels! Nice to see you here. I like your writing quite a bit.
Well, illusions are illusions and they don't help for clear thinking. I'd rather get rid of them all, although most likely I still have a good number of them in me.
Some physicist and anthropologist seem to thing that in human nature is some kind of need to contact with the spiritual, or a world "outside" . In many religions they try to get to "them" by meditation, ecstasy,drugs, and other practices. It's kind of an addiction induced at a very early age and very difficult to overcome. In drug rehabilitation often religion is used to substitute this need with other less harmful.
Well, as long as it's only one of each, and as long as they're just thinging, I think we can dismiss them.
I said SOME no ONE! And I don't "think" we can dismiss them.
You wrote "physicist and anthropologist", and you wrote they "thing", not "think".
(And I go around saying my mother worked as an interpreter.)
Okay, but seriously, madre, I'm with your aforementioned scientists. Humans have a need to envision a better and more fabulous world than this arduous reality we must cut though each day. I think that "other world" is inside, not outside. Outside, there is only what there is: matter and energy configured into galaxies, stars, planets, living creatures and other forms, largely in very stable ways. Inside the mind of each person is a different interpretation of what exists outside.
Your mother never translated anything by writing. Sometimes is a question of my mind don't working so fast anymore, sometimes is a question of not having my glasses on, sometimes is typing the wrong letter by mistake, but if you are trying to keep the perfection of the language in this medium I want you to know that you are going to intimidate the few people who would like to comment on it. And.. yes you're right it's
"inside" where it is but they think is "outside" where it comes from.
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