...and so are you. If you can read this blog, you are alive. You are in a state of "being." The way in which I want to use this word is to counter "non-being." If you are wary of approaching existential issues, don't read on.
The ideas of being and non-being are on my mind a lot these days. Actually, they've been on my mind a lot since Fall quarter, when Teta died and first read Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be. I had a bit of an existential crisis in January and February, which was probably a conflation of the previous two events with a study of the OT. I wouldn't say that it is resolved, but the existential axiety has definately been reduced by meaningful relationships.
But I still think a lot about non-being. In this regard, death scares me. Since gaining a little more of an idea of the understanding of life after death (or actually the lack thereof) in the Old Testament, and some alternate understandings of the Christian conceptualizations of the same, I am more scared than I was before. To be honest, the idea of non-being scares me shitless. Because all you can know is being. When you are in a state of non-being, you actually aren't. You can't know what non-being is because knowing implies being. You can't remember what being was like because memory implies being. You can't compare non-being to sleeping, because sleeping implies waking up and looking back. But non-being is permanent (at least in the way I'm conceptualizing it - if non-being wasn't permanent, as in a bodily resurrection, then it would be less scary, because you'd regain whatever awareness you had immediately after losing whatever awareness you had in this present life) so you can't look back on it. All of this is just dizzying to think about! And there is absolutely nothing to compare it to. Because you can't conceive nothingness. When I try to, it's absolutely petrifying.
So that's one of the things that I think about. I don't think about it too much, because I can't. It's too hard. I would lose touch with reality.
The other half of the discussion is being. Consider being. Consider that it is all you know. It is all you can know. Consider history. People having been being for centuries. What is it like to be someone? Someone else? Consider that you exist. I mean really consider it. You have to exist, otherwise you couldn't consider being. Consider that the Earth exists. Look at a tree in the middle of a field. Why is the tree there? Look at the way it arches out of the Earth. There it is. Consider the tree not being there. Look at the tree as if it were the first time you saw anything. As if you were looking through the eyes of an infant. Look at the tree as if you'd never seen anything but flat land. Be fascinated with the fact that, for no immediate reason, the flatness of the land has been disrupted by the presence of the tree. Can you see things in this way? I know you can. Just try to look differently. Look for the first time.
Thanks for your time. Your comments are appreciated.
You are alive.
Peace to you.
7 comments:
There is nothing to be afraid of (and I mean this quite literally). If death is non-being, then you simply cease to be. You are worrying about nothing.
If when you die you enter the state of non-being (that is to say, you are no longer you or in any 'state' at all), then your body is nothing more than a physical artefact. There is no you.
There is nothing to remember, nothing to conceive, no point making comparisons. You won't be you. You simply won't be.
Really, our language is unsuitable for describing such a state (if it even exists). Statements like "You can't know..." or "You can't remember..." are inherently false because they assume the presence of a you,.
If when you die non-being is what happens, then (----------------).
How else to describe it? I suppose we could talk about the dead body that remains. Is that you? Not really. Still, that is all that is left (though you wouldn't know it).
exactly.
But, why is it frightening?
I guess it's scary because I can't conceive what it will be like. Because, of course, it won't be like anything. Because I won't be. Because there simply isn't a way to understand what it will be like, because it won't be. In my being, non-being simply cannot be grasped. I think when trying to grasp it, or when not trying to but then it inadvertently comes to me anyways, the inability to conceive it and the overwhelming infinity of what does come to me combines to, well, overwhelm me.
And because I don't want to not be. Because of its finality. Once you die, it's all over.
(I'm not at all explaining what it is I'm feeling. I am frustrated at the lack of language to talk about it. I feel like I'm just babbling around it 'cause I can't get to it. Also, I know all of the discussion of the afterlife, but right now for whatever reason that's not a part of my embodied belief, even if I can consider it cognitively.)
Zach, I think i got a bit of a better feel about what you're talking with. Not that I can say any more, because of how obscure it is, but I think I understood how it could be less scary since non-being really isn't an option because it implies being, which would no longer be true. I guess I could just feel it a little differently (though I wouldn't say I'm converted ;) Thanks for your thoughts.
Exactly what I was saying... but, it was more about being pedantic than anything. I really can see how the thought of absolute non-existence is frightening (even if being afraid isn't really an option).
Good talking on here. Cheers!
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