When You Die

“Where does it come from, this quest? This need to solve life's mysteries with the simplest of questions can never be answered. Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream?” ("Heroes: Chapter One 'Genesis' (#1.1)" (2006/II)) This is not the first time I’ve quoted Heroes to kick off a post. This time, there will be a little substance behind it.

The basket of simple questions that can never be answered is big enough to hold more than just the three examples above. And while I find those questions relevant to my eventual point, the one I want to dwell on falls into the same category: what happens to us when we die? After your final minute is expired, who you are, your being, your only connection to the living world, your perspective, your identifiable individuality, ceases to produce life, then what? Do the lights get turned off, or turned on?

I admit, this topic intrigues me. And honestly, I’m relatively curious about the answer; because there is an answer. Unlike ‘why are we here’ or ‘why do we dream,’ there are over one hundred billion people who already know the answer, whether they have the wherewithal to comprehend that answer remains to be seen, but regardless, there is no mystery. 93% of the population that has ever step foot on this earth already knows the answer. We just don’t have the means to retrieve it. This makes it a frustrating mystery. Figuring out why we are here is theoretically impossible, it’s just an argument. It could never be anything more than an opinion, an argument. You can’t have facts behind it. Figuring out what happens after we die is impossible for a different reason. Something does happen. Whether it’s drifting upward to heaven, south to hell, into the arms of one thousand virgins, reincarnated as a sea turtle, miserably stuck in limbo, decomposed back into the earth, or simply nothing, there is still a result; an answer.

Given you agree with what I’ve laid out, that it’s humanly impossible to know, how are there so many people in the world convinced that living this life is preparation of what comes next? This is going to sound like a criticism of the religiously fanatic, and I guess it can be interpreted that way, but those aren’t my intentions. If whatever you believe in leads you to living a better, more peaceful, understanding, nurturing, helpful, careful, caring life, spreading knowledge, joy, and patience, it’s ignorantly short-sighted to criticize the way you arrived there. Even if you live that life based on the belief that it’s your ticket into heaven, a decent life, in the context of good-intentioned, not just ‘better than average,’ is always worth living. But if you live your life in a way that is detrimental to your peers, intentionally hateful, blindfully narrow-minded, elitistly exclusive, all for an all-encompassing greater cause or commitment to an unguaranteed posthumous result, well then I have a problem with that.

I don’t live a perfect life. I have never claimed to. I can’t even claim that I’ve done everything I can to live a perfect life. But I also don’t live my life in fear that what I have or haven’t done will have an impact on what happens to my body, my soul, my essence, when, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, I cease to exist. I am unequivocally pleased with the current state of my life, the people in it, the actions I’ve taken to reach it, and the future that it holds. I don’t need to trudge out a list of seemingly redeemable characteristics that would be my proverbial ticket-punch into whatever the desired afterlife party might look like. I just know that when my head hits the pillow, there’s nothing making me lose sleep.

I’m not breaking new ground here. There are enough ‘inspirational’ quotes out there that succinctly state what I’ve meandered to through the last four paragraphs. Hell, I’ve even written about it before Leave it all on the Field. Most of us go through life with some form of motivation, some purpose, some reason that keeps us getting out of bed in the morning. Whether you’re a good person to set an example for your kids, or you’re a drug dealer who wants to get out of a shitty life, whether you’re a pious member of society hell-bent on being heaven-bound, or you’re an anarchist, convinced that breaking the system is the only way to not become part of the machine, there’s usually an over-arching structure that gently guides our day-to-day like wind gusts to butterflies. Regardless of your beliefs, motivations, or inspirations, it would be foolish to not see a bigger picture. If you can’t take a step back and see the framework, if you’re too far in the forest to see the trees, if you’re so immersed in the ultimate outcome that you’ve lost sight of the existence of the other 7 billion people here, then you’re a little misguided.

Any belief, too strong and too cemented to waver, can be dangerous. Take a step back once in a while. It’s a pretty impressive piece of work.