Life is Death

When I think about the human condition, particularly our mortality, I wonder about meaning and purpose. As a living organism that is here and now to ponder life and death, I owe my existence to multitudes of generations that lived and died so that I too can do the same.

I have heard the statement, "Life is about the journey, not the destination" and I can only assume the destination is death. Survival and procreation keep life going forward, but nothing lasts forever even if life can survive to the end. This cycle of birth, maturation, aging, decline and death are a universal pattern in all things. Even linear time has a beginning, middle and end.

Add into this the idea that countless generations had to kill and consume other living creatures daily to survive and reproduce to eventually produce me makes the cost of my existence incredibly high. All this so that I can live a short time, die and turn into elements that eventually get sucked into the universal black hole at the end of time.

And this for what? The journey? Once the lights go out, it's show's over, it will be as if all this never existed. The journey, of the collective or individual, is gone in the instant it is experienced and unknown by those who come next.

If, as it seems to be, that this cycle is repeating, then this just happens over and over again to all life forms, in all universes, for eternity. Given these thoughts, I can't help but believe that our reality is a textbook definition of hell.

Dark, yes I know, but evident in my mind.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Ah, yes. Fatalism.

Chin up Buck, winters almost over!

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I have always hypothesized that life on this sphere is school or training.

God created the angels. Many of the angels rebelled and were deceived, rejecting God.

You have a choice. Choose belief in God who died for your transgressions in life or choose to reject him. You get to live a mortal life witnessing good and evil in order to make your determination.

Again, just an hypothesis.

originally posted by: JinMI
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Ah, yes. Fatalism.

Chin up Buck, winters almost over!

I've been rather enjoying this winter (to a degree).

Perhaps good vs evil is light vs darkness.
Yin Yang. All the darkness needs to do is simple wait for the light to burn out and it's game over.

The goal perhaps for the light (energy), is stay lit. To keep shining. Light (energy) wants to create, and create - anything and everything. Darkness just wants to cover up and consume anything else (light/energy) and turn it into nothing.

Perhaps light and darkness (good/evil) is a conscious 'thing'. Perhaps light (energy) found a way through stars to stay 'alive'. And eventually into something even more helpful - self replicating batteries that keep the energy alive and contained. Like life. Microscopic all the way up to giant Redwoods. The goal is keep the energy 'trapped' in a living form, and to reproduce and 'pass the torch' one to another while you're on the way out. But the light must always be kept alive, somehow. And in the end, when the game is over - well we all know that the darkness always wins. It just takes time and the darkness is the only constant in the universe. The light is who's fight this for. This is what the game is about.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I died about 20 years ago. You do not die, it is a transition but you continue to be you and are alive fully aware. I am not going to go through it all here but if you think it is lights out you will be sorely unprepared for what you will find.

I no longer fear death at all. It is an absolutely wonderful existence. After awhile I kind of freaked out that my body was back on Earth dead. It wasn't long after that I was pulled back into my body.

I see this life as people are spiritual embryos preparing for an existence that is totally amazing.

Christ said to endure this life because this creation we find ourselves in is a sin created by an evil being. Have faith in Christ our saviour from the evil one.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

The sun holds all the souls (the energy). In the energy state, all experiences across all time are remembered, archived and be accessed and experienced at any point. In a way everything is universally experienced across all time in the energy state. Once that energy becomes trapped in matter again, new experiences are created and archived. Hence, the rebirth and having to learn how to walk, talk and breathe all over again. There is insufficient capacity in matter to remember all of existence, or we would just be vegetables with no ability to physically interact in the physical world.

Death releases this energy, and supernovae scatter the collective experiences across the universe to merge and re-start in other systems. The you is of no consequence in this state because our corporeal existence is so finite in perception our understanding is too primitive. Or to try and be a bit more comprehensible, yes, it's all about the journey. It does not matter the state of existence in the energy phase as vanities like ego, fear, apprehension, pride various emotions are all witnessed and universally experienced with no regard because there is no consequence during that natural state.

The unnatural state is when energy is trapped in matter. Also called life when that matter is biological. Do you forego a roller coaster or carnival ride just because you know it will typically conclude safely after a few minutes??? Or do you get on anyway to enjoy the rush of adrenaline and endorphins which provide the feel, whether it be excitement or fear?

Same as a movie, or video game or book. I tell people to spoil stories for me all the time, because I will still watch the production, read the story or play the game. And the crazy thing?? I may discover something I missed when i do it again. And again, and again. Kind of like.... This repeating cycle of life and death across the universe(s).

So yes, it IS about the moment, because that moment is sooooooo brief. But it always provides something new to add to the natural state in it's eternal record. Don't worry about the absolute blackness though. When your no longer trapped in the matter, the lack of chemicals that create emotion prevent any of it from being a scary or fearful experience. It's not even possible anymore in that state. The drop in the ocean simply becomes an impartial witness.

And to be Frank, it's actually a very peaceful time with no worry. The drop will get trapped in debris again in no time, ready for all the finite contemplation and new experience that comes with mortality once more.

The Cosmos is the ocean, the energy within us all is the drop. It never goes away, just follows the similar principles of the hydrologic cycle. Personally I like it in the biological prisons preferably as opposed to when it's trapped as potential energy such as radioactive isotopes, having to wait forever for an outside mechanical force to release it again. That could mean millions or billions of eons stuck inside a rock, or dust. Of course that passage of time is still just a blink of an organic eye when not sealed in the limited constructs of a biological vessel.

So enjoy it, because one is not even capable of fathoming it after release, let alone care enough until you start over.

Moss. selfish and self important moss.

We're the pandemic. Self eradicating but virulent.

If God were me and I were thus. I'd hold my head up yet I dont.. why not you ask? Do I whit a not? Yeah, for I'm god... and you are not... pslams. 69:00

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Hey up there from down here Swampbuck!

A thought: In the Garden of Eden...did the animals kill to eat? Or eat the dead ones?

Seem bad. If not, when did they start to kill to eat?

After Cain and Abel, I know ...
But, your post rings true ala "Soylent Green".

Always felt Earth was Zoo. Man, animal, fish, bird, flowers...all from their own individual planets.

All kept here and all observed...by...THEM.

For some reason it all seems so unfair to me and why should it? Why not just except that things are the way they are and just more or less mindlessly live my life without questioning anything?

Animals react and survive solely on instincts without any higher reasoning interfering with the process. Perhaps this is the path of least resistance regarding the life cycles. Go for the ride, live in the moment and have no unreasonable fears, it's about the best one can do it would seem.

originally posted by: KorosStrohna
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I died about 20 years ago. You do not die, it is a transition but you continue to be you and are alive fully aware. I am not going to go through it all here but if you think it is lights out you will be sorely unprepared for what you will find.

I no longer fear death at all. It is an absolutely wonderful existence. After awhile I kind of freaked out that my body was back on Earth dead. It wasn't long after that I was pulled back into my body.

I see this life as people are spiritual embryos preparing for an existence that is totally amazing.

This is what I'd like to believe, that our physical death is a transition into a more developed spiritual being on a higher plane of existence. Similar to metamorphosis in some insect species but a transformation from a material existence into a non-material one.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

our consciousness has become trapped in time. We are unaware of this because everything we seek to understand is reasoned through a mental process that relies on time to reach a conclusion. Timelessness cannot be understood through a time-oriented system of reasoning. Timelessness has to be directly experienced. We (consciousness) become convinced that we are trapped in a matrix of unbending physical laws and so become death-conscious. Identifying with entropy we then become despondent and cynical and see the condition of being alive as being a slow process of death rather than a process of living.

We cannot think our way out of a matrix web that has been built by thought. For that we have to go beyond thought. The matrix is a web, it is not a solid cocoon. A web has gaps. The way back to our original timeless nature is through the gaps. The gaps are spaces unfilled by thought. Thought cannot be continuous the same way music cannot be continuous, the spaces of silence are essential.

We have been trained by our societies to focus on the words, and the gaps between those words are just utilitarian. The matrix is stroboscopic and so hypnotic. The mind itself is a mechanism of self-hypnosis.

Dylan Thomas said, “Do not go gentle into that good night..... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” was looking at light as being a physical phenomenon of photons emitted by stars and artificial illumination. That physical light is also dependent on photo receptors. Blind people have no such receptors but they are not in a state of rage. In fact they can be happy and creative.

People who have had near death experiences seem to universally agree one one thing - light and experiencing meeting non-physical beings made of light.

Skeptics who want to cling onto their standpoint that they are dying rather than living will argue that when the brain is dying it begins to hallucinate and projects a non-physical world to protect itself from realizing that it is being terminated. The last or perhaps the only act of compassion from the beast that is blind biology.

But where does the light come from? The inner light? Is it possible to imagine light? All of our dreams are only possible because of light - an inner light, We don’t question that light in dreaming or it’s source. It is taken for granted and is just a servant to illuminate the stream of self-created theatre. Then the light has to go out to fall into deep sleep to rest from the exhaustion of the cycles of activity. And then it is switched back on again. Do we rage inwardly at the dying of this light?

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Maybe we look for meaning, where there is none ?

Perhaps there is no meaning in anything, and it is a Human quality that we seek, invent, and assign meaning ?

originally posted by: Nothin
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Maybe we look for meaning, where there is none ?

Perhaps there is no meaning in anything, and it is a Human quality that we seek, invent, and assign meaning ?

Perhaps human meaning is meaningless, but there must be something about it that has a meaning we are incapable of understanding. Either way it is beyond human comprehension, but I would rather say that we are looking for meaning where we will never find it.