Death, Dying, & Wonderful Things
11:41 pm. It's another sleepless night for the anxiety driven. I like to think I live somewhere between the reality that I occupy space in, and the hypothetical that my mind gets lost in. I have been thinking about death EVERY DAY for the past few weeks, but not in the sense of wanting to die or anything morbid, but the reality of death as a part of life. This post isn't meant to be morbid, depressing, suicidal, or anything negative. It is absolutely intended to be provocative. I could be completely wrong in my theory, but there's only one way to test it.
I used to believe that death was a passageway into a reunion with the people that meant the world to me. I used to believe in a god, and that my eternity was set. I would spend my days with some dude who knew me, and I'd be constantly partying with childhood friends. In retrospect, I was doing nothing more than projecting the best parts of this existence into a false promise that kept my mind subdued, because dealing with the reality of death is terrifying. Now heaven seems like a prison constructed to become a stranger's version of paradise.
When you die, everything stops. At least, it's been described to me that everything stops, but I have a hard time finding substance in that description. To say something stops forces you to assume that at one point it started. In death, you move into a plain of existence that has no start and no stop, it doesn't fade to black, it becomes what never was. Religion defines this as eternity, but I have a slightly more abstract view that I will try to explain as best I can.
It all started as a single celled accident. Go back billions of years ago when simple organisms floated around in large bodies of water. Some were compelled to the depths, and some were drawn to the surface. Those that drifted upward found an evolutionary necessity for vision, and the first simple eyes were developed. No depth of field, no contrast, no color, just shadows. If those simple organisms had the ability to speak, how would the blind parents explain shadows to their children? I would imagine it would fearful and confused. Crisper pictures eventually evolved, an acute sense of sound, skin that could transmit chemicals to the brain translating the sensation of touch. All of this came from evolutionary necessity. Not the tardigrades, those little bastards don't need ANYTHING. They are evolutionarily perfect in my opinion.
If we were to evolve an additional sensation, how would it.....no...how COULD it be described? There would be no precedent set to have a reference point. I truly believe that it would be met with fear and confusion. Enter god. God is this magical omnipotent omnipresent existence, and through him all things are possible, right? Personally, I (uppercase) want to see him (lowercase) get off the high horse. In our current state of the evolutionary process, it would be very easy to classify that which we do not know as a mystical or spiritual phenomenon. But I think it's a lot more simple, and I think calling anything that cannot be explained the work of a deity is a gross overclassification of power.
Human's can easily understand the first three dimensions. One-dimensional beings would be nothing more than a single dot. No depth, no width, no height, just a spot that never changes. It would be as though you could only see a still image for your entire existence. Two-dimensional beings have the ability to move, but without any depth to appreciate the world they reside in. It's easiest to relate to the third dimension because we live there on a daily basis, so where things really start to get abstract is when you start taking about 4th-dimensional fields of existence. In the 4th-dimension, there is no time. There is simply existence and the ability to explore that which was and that which will be. I think we classify beings from this field of existance as gods because humanity as a whole cannot grasp the concept that there could be a scientific explanation to the unknown, even if that explanation won't come until after their own passing. However, what many people call god could just as easily be 'Frank' with a first-hand account of residing inside a 4th dimensional plain of existence. To me, death could be the evolutionary step of mortality into the 4th dimension. Anymore and I find the process of death and dying to be a mystery that I one day hope to find the answer to. I used to seek out the answer, now I'm patiently waiting. My day will come, but I hope I'm on my feet when the mystery stops being so mysterious.
This has been my view on death for about a year now. Let me be crystal clear on something. IT IS PERFECTLY HEALTHY TO THINK ABOUT DEATH. At least, it's healthy for me to think about death. I've shifted my views from seeking out the reality of causing my death to living in the hypothetical of what will happen in death. There is not a day that goes by when I don't think about it for at least three waking hours, and I cherish every thought of it. To live in a mad world, you must embrace the madness. The reason that I love thinking about death, is it forces me to think about how insignificant the amount of time I have to spend in the 3rd-dimension. I want to make my time worthwhile to those around me, and allow my impact on the world to last longer than I do. I had other things I wanted to talk about, but I really should try to go to sleep before the hour hand hits 1. So here's a video you can enjoy that breaks down the first 10 dimensions in easy to understand dialogue.