PHYSICS!
So there are a number of things that I hold very dearly with regards to this topic.One is this online comic:
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| Happle Tea. |
- God?
- Hm?
- Where do people go when they die?
- The same place people go.
- Heaven?
- The ground.
It's sad, but it's true.
But, there is also something deeply beautiful about the idea.
There are no concerns like in the Greek mythology of different places where people end up, let alone the animals:
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| Civil planning was a nightmare |
No cosmic judgment.
No good or bad or the other.
Just the ground.
With everyone else.
Hamlet actually says it best:
HAMLET
Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this
fashion i'
the earth?
the earth?
HORATIO
E'en so.
HAMLET
And smelt so? pah!
Puts down the skull
HORATIO
E'en so, my lord.
HAMLET
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Why may
not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
HORATIO
'Twere to consider too curiously, to
consider so.
HAMLET
No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him
thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
Alexander, the world's greatest conqueror would one day act as a stopper for beer.
We should all hope for so much.
METAPHYSICS!
To relate on a more metaphysical level:
Zhuangzi (one of the greatest Daoist thinkers) had this dream that most everyone is familiar with:
"Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."
- A man has a dream that he was a butterfly
- In the dream he was unaware of being anything but a butterfly
- Awakes again as the man
- Is no longer sure he is the butterfly dreaming or the man who dreamt
In no medium have I seen this more accurately portrayed than Roy in Rick & Morty.
Meet Roy.
Roy is a game.
A game that people play.
Where they wake up as a child from a horrid nightmare where they lived with otherworldly beings.
We are reassured by our mothers back to bed.
And we live a life.
And when we die it's GAME OVER.
And then we wake up.
And that is Roy's life.
To us, to Roy it is complete and real and whole and valuable.
But, from a larger perspective, it is just a game.
That disturbs me more than anything.
What if the nightmares from our childhood were the reality we are trying to escape?
What if when we die, we wake up?
Are we really butterflies?
Are we monsters?
Something inbetween?
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