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Showing posts with label life after death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life after death. Show all posts

Saturday 16 December 2017

Poem of the Day

Psyche

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name -
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life! - For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

S.T. Coleridge

Coleridge is my favourite poet not because of his supposedly opium-fuelled Kubla Khans and Ancient Mariners (though I do love those too) but because he writes about life, and if I'm feeling grim and lonely I find a friend in him.  Nature, struggle, despondency, the Elements, transcendence, the Stars, cottages, fireside, the comfort of a dying flame and the vulnerable, doomed warmth of loved ones. I identify with his struggle, physical, psychological, spiritual, through howling winds and wintry blasts.  I can easily imagine going back to the early 1800s and spending a pleasant afternoon by a fireside chatting with Coleridge about ever-present Death and the difficulties and possibilities of transcending the trials of a doomed mortal life.

Sunday 18 December 2016

Thoughts expected during the coming year.

Loss of place, loss of community - memories of a time when islands were not, or seemed not, places of isolation.
These are the things that will be occupying my thoughts during the coming year.  When I can shoehorn them in among worrying about bills, getting the car fixed, damp-dusting, the 'ageing process', Death, World War Three, eating too many biscuits, did I use up the emergency UHT milk last Tuesday, bothering the doctor with my rheumy eye, will I die 'early and suddenly' (preferred option) or wither away, alone and ga-ga, in a work-house-style care home et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that is.  Death and Money, basically.  And as one gets older, Death, naturally, tends to predominate.
If you aren't readying yourself for Death, ur not doin it rite. Life, that is.  I read that somewhere.  Or at least, something along those lines.
I'm forever readying myself for Death.  I have been ever since I was in my 30s when I expected, due to illness, to be dead at 42.  However that did not occur.  42 came and went, and a fairly large number of years have followed.  I count myself lucky.  Now I think of myself as being in a waiting room, waiting my turn, sweaty palms and dicky tummy, reading magazines I never usually read and eating sweets to try to take my mind off the horror of it all.  Lots of people have gone on before, let's face it.  It can't be that bad - can it? We all must open the door alone and find out what lies behind it, alone.  Perhaps it's not that bad after all.  We just don't know what lies beyond, because nobody's come back to tell us.  Fear of the unknown and all that.
Meanwhile, it's probably a good idea to set aside 'readying yourself' from time to time, and enjoy oneself as much as possible.  Otherwise one might become depressed and likely to move on from magazines and sweets to truly life-threatening things such as alcohol, drugs, fatty foods, dangerous 'sports' and so forth, in order to blot out the existential anxiety, thereby increasing it by increasing the chances of an earlier demise possibly through complications arising from morbid obesity.
Can I manage that?  Can I manage to set aside readying myself?  I'm not sure.   I am sure, and I know from experience, that reading and writing are two non-life-threatening activities which can blot it out, if the subject matter is sufficiently interesting and engaging.  Obviously that won't include (at least not when anyone's looking) articles about gluten-free baking,  Katie Perry's beach-ready-body and Cruz Beckham's singing career.  That is an excellent motivation.
On the other hand, why should one bother to avoid life-threatening things, when one is going to die anyway?  It's only putting off the inevitable and you can smoke and drink merrily knowing you will be saving the state a few quid by dying 'early and suddenly' of a heart attack or rapidly-advancing cancer.  Nobody lives forever.  The reason I don't presently tend to over-indulge TOO much is because I enjoy physical activity in a moderate kind of way, walking and nature and so forth, and I want to be able to do so for as long as possible.
On the other hand - or foot, since we've used up both hands - you never can tell.  One might not have to bother setting aside 'readying oneself'.   One might come to terms with one's mortality - biting the bullet, so to speak - as one potters along, and have a terrific time doing it.
Compliments of the season, and all that.


Tuesday 21 June 2016

Will there be an Apocalypse, and if so, after, will we be able to buy and enjoy cheese?

Of course not!  To both!  Although wait a minute - how can I say that with such dismissive certainty?  Nobody knows if there will be an apocalypse, or indeed what form it might take should one occur.
Say, for example, there was an apocalypse booked in for next Tuesday.  Would it wipe out the entire globe, or just half of Kilmarnock (not the good half, obviously)?  We simply do not know.  Would cheese be available, in either respect?  I think it is quite likely that some foodstuffs might survive, and that cheese might very well be among them.
Especially the hard kind,  such as Parmesan.
Would we be able to buy it?  Only if money and a trading environment survived.  Money and buying might be consigned to the dustbins of history, post-apocalypse.  We might have to stoop to 'looting' it.
As for 'enjoying' it - well, stolen fruits and all that.  And it would all depend on a decent cheddar being available. And on not impairing one's enjoyment of said cheddar by worrying about skyrocketing cholesterol.
I'm bored thinking about it now, and am moving on to 'what if the whole world went underwater due to apocalyptic flooding and to escape Kevin Costner - how quickly would we develop gills?'

Monday 20 June 2016

Are We Turning into Machines?

Surely this isn't likely.  At least, not terribly.  I mean,  I accept that as organic beings - if you take a teleological perspective - we are wending our way along a Hegelian-style continuum of evolution - that is, probably.  Perhaps.  Then again,  perhaps not.  And whereabouts we are on that continuum, should such a thing exist, or be occurring, is a matter of pure conjecture.
Where does that leave us?  Sort of where we always were I suppose.
I don't think we're that far from the 'fish crawling out of swamp' stage really.  Well, so it seems if you look at social media.
We certainly use a lot of technology - our lives revolve around it now - and technology is increasingly involved in health care and in food production, so that we even ingest technology without knowing it.  The virtual web surrounds us and numbs us like the poisonous silvery threads of an enormous, crushing, stifling spider's web.  The harder you struggle, the more you kick, the harder it is to escape.  (Is that true?  I'm not sure.  Perhaps it just feels like that.)
One of the things that worries me most is that already there are no letters, no diaries with which secrets are shared, no accounts of daily life written in the watches of the night and hidden under pillows. Will there ever be political diaries again?  A Chris Mullin, a Tony Benn?  What about Byron and his Letters?  Nowadays he'd have an Instagram account and probably a leaked sex tape.  Everything's ephemeral - close your account and it's gone,  all gone, all bar that embarrassing photo you were tagged in on Facebook that just will never go away.
Perhaps as we age we will have failing parts of us replaced so that eventually we are completely mechanical, and just require to be 'maintained' and 'serviced'.  Hips, knees, kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs. Teeth.  Faces.  They do all this already, in some form or other.  So, semi-mechanical humanoids, yes, that I can envisage.   What about brains?  Will they be next?  And what about souls?  I think we all have those, and I'm quite sure you cannot manufacture a soul.  A machine may be able to 'think', but it cannot have a soul.
No, I don't think we''re 'turning into' into machines.  I'm not convinced that we're turning into anything, we're not evolving at all.  If we're doing anything, anything at all, we're spiralling downwards, the trajectory is downwards, earthwards, drilling into the dirt and knocking ourselves senseless on rocks.  We don't understand time never mind the infinite, and our place within it.  Our view of existence is limited,  we see only a fraction, like navigating through life via that steamed-up triangular window in the Apollo 13 space capsule.
What gives me hope is the organic world.
Nature doesn't like nasty machines.

Next post - Will there be an Apocalypse, and if so, after, will we still be able to buy cheese?

Thursday 13 October 2011

Is Everything an Illusion, and do we have souls?

"Are we safe?"
"No, of course not. Nobody's ever safe. You know that as well as I do. The membrane between life and Death is as fine as the caul on a new-born babe."
"Here we are, sitting comfortably by the fire, just had our supper, everything secure..."
"That's all by the by. Security is an illusion. The material world, as we perceive it, is an illusion. We - and I use the term merely because I can't think of another at the moment - are a collection - a confluence -of energy particles in a condition of flux. In fact, the only permanence, the only security, is flux."
"Is everything random then? Or is there an overall pattern? Look at that piece of driftwood for example. You can see how it's been shaped by its journey through the world. Where did it come from? We can only wonder. It was part of a tree, obviously. But was it part of the trunk, or a branch that fell off during a storm? Was it uprooted by a landslide, swept down to an estuary by a flooded river, and borne far out to sea on a Spring tide?"
"And then washed ashore and left high and dry by the ebb, ready for us to gather for our fire."
"Is that random? is it coincidence, or was it meant to be? And it's riddled with termite holes. It supported life, even in Death - like the story of the lion in the Bible."
"It's still supporting life. It's keeping us warm."
"I don't want to burn it now! I've grown fond of it now that I know it better. It seems like more than just a piece of wood. It's got a soul. I don't want to see it burning up and turning into ashes before my very eyes."
"Happens to us all Geoffrey. Might as well bite the bullet and face it."
"Do you think trees have souls Tuppy? Do WE have souls, come to that?"
"Trees probably do have them. You've probably got one. If not your own one, then somebody else's. I've not got one - I swapped mine a while back, for some decent sausages, remember? I did a deal with Death. I was starving. Well, peckish."
"Do you regret it now, even just a little bit?"
"No, can't say I do Geoffrey. I didn't know I had it in the first place."

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Death - is it avoidable?

(I know - I've done this before. A few times. But hey. Always worth another visit.)

Geoffrey and I were sitting by the fire discussing the ways of the world, while the rain battered the tiny windows of the Outcrop.
"Another madeira, Tuppy?" asked Geoffrey, rising to his feet.
"Why not," I replied, proffering my mug. "Another pint or two should keep out the chill on this fine July morning. And fire on the lorne - I'm gasping on my breakfast."
"Are you sure that's wise?" asked Geoffrey, raising a quizzical eyebrow. "After all..."
"Not you as well!" I spluttered. This was too much.
"Well, diet and exercise, Tuppy. Very important if you want to keep your health."
"You've been brainwashed, Geoffrey. You've gone over to the dark side. I thought you had more fortitude. Well, let me tell you this. If the Grim Reaper wants to meet up with me, mano a mano, for a square go anytime - bring it on."
"Square sausage more like."
"Are you implying that I couldn't take on Death?"
"Yes. I'm not being rude or anything, Tuppy, but you couldn't blow the skin off a rice pudding in your current condition."
"Alright. If you want to be like that, fair dos. All I'll say is this - bring me that rice pudding, and watch me blow its skin off. Just watch me do it. And now I'm going in a massive huff."

Monday 28 September 2009

what exactly happens, after death?

Last evening, as we sat by our roaring driftwood fire, and chatted aimlessly over a glass of madeira and a pipe or two, Geoffrey and I realised that we had tired of our fave topic, "Is Death Avoidable?", and have taken the logical step of turning to the next rung up so to speak, viz., "Is There Life After Death?", or, "What Exactly Happens, After Death?".
"Does this mean that we've accepted Death as inevitable?" I mused.
"No Tuppy, of course we haven't," replied Geoffrey, refilling his pipe.
"All the same that doesn't mean that we're going to stop eating pies, surely?" I asked, worriedly.
"No. Pies, salty/fatty snax and processed meats will remain a major part of our diets. Have no fear on that front, Tuppy."
"What on earth do you mean then? According to the ghastly Wilson, our diet is killing us. Salt, the silent killer. Kidneys like conkers. Fatty atheromas. Plaques. You name it, we've got it."
"Yes, but who is Wilson, really? what does he really know? all this so-called research that he bangs on about viz a viz our diets could be just a load of old pants, quite frankly. And look at the state of him! So pale and scrawny. And that's him living on seaweed."
"Or so he says, Geoffrey. I've often suspected he might supplement his so-called diet with something else...but more of that later. I agree he does look as if he could do with a good feed."
"Yes and he's SO tense all the time! ranting on about people's mortality and getting worked up."
"Yes. I'm surprised that HE doesn't have a heart attack. He wants to chill out a bit. Anyway enough about Wilson. Get back to the point, please, Geoffrey. You were saying that we haven't given up on the idea that death could be avoidable?"
"Of course we haven't. But we might as well digress for a bit to consider what might happen should death occur - afterwards."
"Oh." I must say my heart sank as I contemplated this ghastliness. All sorts of depressing scenarios flooded my brain. Life without Geoffrey! And never mind that - would there be madeira, and crisps?
"No, Geoffrey, this won't do at all. This is depressing the hell out of me. We'll have to return to sunnier climes, viz., is Death Avoidable. And pass me that plateful of korn bif and salad cream sandwiches while you're at it."

Wednesday 23 September 2009

I swap a knee rug for my immortal soul

Last evening, Geoffrey and I were enjoying our usual glass of madeira in front of a roaring driftwood fire. We sat in companionable silence for an hour or so, puffing away on pipefuls of Black Bogey and toasting our feet. Then...
"What's that awful smell?" said Geoffrey.
"Burning rubber, " I replied. The sole of my slipper had started to melt. Not for the first time.
Once we'd removed the slipper and set it at the front door to re-solidify, we sat down again and began to discuss our fave topic, viz. "Is Death Avoidable?" Regular readers will know that this involves a reflection on the point or otherwise of reducing dietary fat intake and increasing regular exercise. Usually we decide that there's no point in doing either - why make life more unpleasant that it needs to be?
As we did so, a shadow passed back and forth outside our window - the Grim Reaper himself, complete with scythe - the miserable old so and so.
"Get lost!" we shouted. "You're much too early. The winter hasn't even set in."
"Why isn't he down at the bay?" muttered Geoffrey. "After all, there's plenty work for him there, what with the new trip wire and all."
"Yes," a ghastly voice intoned (the Reaper), "but the tourist season's nearly over. I'm all out of cyclists and kayakers. I'm having to spread my net a bit wider. Can I come in? It's a bit nippy out here."
"No! go and spread your net somewhere else, why don't you?" I snapped. "What about Tuppence's wrecking light? aren't there any doomed seafarers you can pick on?"
"Good idea. Forgot about that. But I'm still awfully chilly."
"Tuppy - give him your tartan knee rug. And what about your zip up slippers? the sole's gone on one anyway."
With a sigh, I opened the door a crack and handed the Reaper said knee rug and slippers.
And off he went. For now...
"I want the rug back mind," I called. The Reaper replied with a nonchalant wave as he shuffled off down the hillside.
"Tuppy!" hissed Geoffrey. "You fool! You've given him a reason to return. Let him keep the thing. It's a small exchange for your immortal soul, after all."
"Ooops! I didn't think of that!"

Saturday 4 July 2009

is death avoidable?

Razor Bill stopped by with the post this morning. Not that we ever get any real post, it's usually just Reader's Digest competitions, Betterware catalogues and address labels and stuff from the PDSA. Not to mention the occasional lump of dog muck. The item we look forward to most of course is the weekly Somerfield specials leaflet, which generally features our fave things, such as crisps, drink, fizzy juice, pies and korn bif.
Bill informed us that he'd treated himself recently to a multi pack of Somerfield own brand LUXURY toilet paper, and was SHOCKED to discover, on opening it, that the perforations were missing! imagine his horror!! not to mention the sheer inconvenience of having to rip it!!! that'll teach him to indulge in unnecessary luxuries.
Geoffrey and I, having used up the supply left by the visitors, have now reverted to our practice of going " au naturel".
The weather's been a bit hot recently so I got Geoffrey to clip my wool. He used the no. 1 setting on our tondeuse set which gives me quite a severe look, but I think I like it, although it does age me a bit. I then went out for a stroll along the cliffs to get a breath of air. On the way I bumped into the ghastly Wilson ( see list of characters if you don't know who he is) who was patrolling the cliffs to check that anyone out and about was wearing sunblock. Wilson demanded to know if I was wearing any - when I said no, of course not, he screamed at me to get back indoors, as in my hairless, fairskinned state, I was a cancer risk, and as such, was liable to give him an awful lot of unnecessary work, and possibly die, at some future date! charming!!
This led to a conversation between me and Geoffrey about death - specifically, is death avoidable? as we sat comfortably by our fireside (fire unlit, due to heatwave, and no tartan knee rugs, either) sipping a glass or two of iced madeira and puffing away on our pipes, after a slap up dinner of Somerfield steak and gravy pies and hash browns, followed by two blueberry muffins apiece, and looking forward to a late supper of korn bif and salad cream sandwiches, we pondered the question. If we did as Wilson demands, and gave up our pies, drink, pipes, and complete lack of exercise, if we never went out in the sun without hats and sunblock, if we never crossed a road, or had a bacon or processed meat sandwich, would we live forever? could death actually be avoided? we're going to ask the Tupfinder what he thinks, tomorrow.