Toxinebulaic
winter is coming
- Aug 2, 2023
- 25
I don't believe in an afterlife.
I'm open to the idea, but for me, I just haven't been sufficiently convinced that one exists. Religious doctrines almost always try to answer this question of what happens after death, what is the afterlife, but I find the very notion of an afterlife to be absurd. That being said, I understand why many people believe in an afterlife of some kind. It's an intuitive idea. Humans have been giving meaning to that which does not have meaning ever since they were created. It's my explanation for why our beliefs are so diverse and often not based completely in scientific evidence. Everybody believes something for which they have no evidence. Everybody feels things they can't explain in the context of our comprehension of reality. For me, even though I believe entirely that there is no afterlife, I can never shake the thought that there is.
If you'll indulge me for a brief paragraph, imagine you walk into a coffee shop. A coffee shop at the end of time. You walk in and are immediately struck by the vibrance of the place. To your eyes it seems to be a kaleidoscope of warm autumn colours , a seemingly four dimensional reality where the fourth dimension has been severed off. The shop seems shattered and calm, happy and sad, everything and nothing. It's full of emptiness. Occasionally a guest will stand and file out through the exit on the other side of the shop. After standing and taking in the clean air of the shop, tasting the obsolescence, you walk over to a booth and have a seat. You sit there for a long time. You reminisce. What did life mean to you? What did it mean to anybody? You realize with a sharp tang that you are dead. The thought would normally concern you, but it has no more bitter a taste than the lovely smell of coffee wafting through the shop. Eventually, a human-like creature in a black suit approaches the booth, and looks at the cushioned seats across from you. It sits down.
"What did it all mean to you?"
It says the words as though it had already given you the context. It had not. Nonetheless, you don't need to ask what it meant. You tell it your name and where you were born. Your age is a foggy number on the tip of your tongue. It matters not. Age lost its meaning the moment you walked into the coffee shop. You explain your goals, your emotions, everything that made you what you were. You tell it how life made you feel. You tell it what you believe. It listens. It understands. It's the last thing that ever will. The creature seems like an early sketch of itself, imperfect. It holds the scythe of the grim reaper. It is the grim reaper. After an amount of time that you could not describe, you finally finish your coffee and your story. The grim reaper tells you it is finally time to let go. You stand without hesitation. You look behind you at the door into the coffee shop, now closed. You look forward and see the grim reaper beckoning you forward into a door that opens into a dark abyss. You walk towards it. Stepping through the door, you lose your footing. You don't fall. You look behind you and see black where the door had been. And you are alone. But you feel full. You don't need anybody or anything anymore. You let yourself float through the open space, and shut your eyes. You don't feel your body anymore. It's finally over.
Maybe you didn't walk into a coffee shop. Maybe you didn't walk anywhere. Maybe you woke up. You woke up in a cinema watching a show. A story. A story of the one closest to you. Their story is ongoing, and in it, you see your coffin. You see what became of you, what the world thinks of you in death. It doesn't occur to you that you can stand up for a very long time. In the absence of suffering, you forget what your body feels like. Despite that, the episode does end eventually. Other people in the audience stand up to leave. Among them, your grandparents. They look at you. They nod. They continue walking. Leaving the theatre you find yourself in a long, seemingly infinite hallway of cinema numbers, each showing banners for their own show. Shows named after people. Some of them you know, most of them you don't. At this time of day most shows are over, but you do notice a couple still on. You walk into one and see the stark difference in production compared to the show you woke up watching. It's more depressing. You watch a young man stay up until he can't move his body trying to finish the projects given to him by his employer. His life is on a deadline, where the deadline lies just after the point at which he falls off the tightrope he walks everyday. You feel bad. He feels bad. Everybody in the cinema feels depressed, and so too does the young man. You look at the lot of them. You yell out.
Life isn't worth living if the only thing you'll ever do is work yourself to death! Life's most rewarding meaning is that which stems from love and community! This young man ought not waste his life depressed doing what he hates for nobodies sake but those who pay him. He needs to find somebody and live his life!
The peanut gallery glares at you. Some of them nod. Most of them shake their heads in disapproval. Onscreen, the young man looks up from his work for a second. He looks at his watch and sighs. His inner monologue begins to speak. It says that life isn't worth living if the only thing he'll ever do is work himself to death. It says that life's most rewarding meaning is that which stems from love and community. He contemplates how he is wasting his life depressed doing what he hates for nobody's sake but those who pay him. He wants to find somebody and live his life. As he thinks this, he decides that it would be better off for himself and his peace of mind if he stopped working and just went to bed. He knows it to be true, and more and more of the audience seems to agree. The last stragglers look at you, scowling. The young man is tempted to go back to work. Ultimately, he does not. He lets himself fall under the covers of his bed and rest. The episode ends. As people file out of the theatre. Some of them scowl at you, saying that now they won't have anything else to do with their night while the showrunners create the next episode.
You ignore them and leave, walking down the hallway, further and further. Eventually, you come across a sign that is no longer illuminated as every other is. It has your face and name on it. It is your show. Suddenly, things make sense. You had these intrusive thoughts that you were being watched your entire life, sometimes you would even talk to the universe as an audience when you were alone. It made you feel crazy. Now you know why. Even as you discover this, people - showrunners - file out of the theatre. They take down the sign, and sigh. There, you meet the grandfather that died before you got to meet him. You talk to people who were never in your life. You talk to old friends who had devastated you with their death. You catch up. And the next morning, you watch and contribute to the life of the people who mattered to you, still alive. They think about you, and it makes you feel better. And so you continue. No burdens, no questions. Not for the rest of eternity.
Or maybe none of that happens. Maybe there's nothing after death, just as everybody says. Maybe all of this is me assigning meaning to that which has no meaning, as is the most human proclivity we have been able to uncover. Regardless, these alternative beliefs are ones held close to my heart in an inescapable way. Maybe, as the blood slowly drains from my brain as my heart stops pumping, I will imagine my coffee shop, and finally accept death on the way out. Or maybe I will simply cease to think.
What do you see in your afterlife?
Life isn't worth living if the only thing you'll ever do is work yourself to death! Life's most rewarding meaning is that which stems from love and community! This young man ought not waste his life depressed doing what he hates for nobodies sake but those who pay him. He needs to find somebody and live his life!
The peanut gallery glares at you. Some of them nod. Most of them shake their heads in disapproval. Onscreen, the young man looks up from his work for a second. He looks at his watch and sighs. His inner monologue begins to speak. It says that life isn't worth living if the only thing he'll ever do is work himself to death. It says that life's most rewarding meaning is that which stems from love and community. He contemplates how he is wasting his life depressed doing what he hates for nobody's sake but those who pay him. He wants to find somebody and live his life. As he thinks this, he decides that it would be better off for himself and his peace of mind if he stopped working and just went to bed. He knows it to be true, and more and more of the audience seems to agree. The last stragglers look at you, scowling. The young man is tempted to go back to work. Ultimately, he does not. He lets himself fall under the covers of his bed and rest. The episode ends. As people file out of the theatre. Some of them scowl at you, saying that now they won't have anything else to do with their night while the showrunners create the next episode.
You ignore them and leave, walking down the hallway, further and further. Eventually, you come across a sign that is no longer illuminated as every other is. It has your face and name on it. It is your show. Suddenly, things make sense. You had these intrusive thoughts that you were being watched your entire life, sometimes you would even talk to the universe as an audience when you were alone. It made you feel crazy. Now you know why. Even as you discover this, people - showrunners - file out of the theatre. They take down the sign, and sigh. There, you meet the grandfather that died before you got to meet him. You talk to people who were never in your life. You talk to old friends who had devastated you with their death. You catch up. And the next morning, you watch and contribute to the life of the people who mattered to you, still alive. They think about you, and it makes you feel better. And so you continue. No burdens, no questions. Not for the rest of eternity.
Or maybe none of that happens. Maybe there's nothing after death, just as everybody says. Maybe all of this is me assigning meaning to that which has no meaning, as is the most human proclivity we have been able to uncover. Regardless, these alternative beliefs are ones held close to my heart in an inescapable way. Maybe, as the blood slowly drains from my brain as my heart stops pumping, I will imagine my coffee shop, and finally accept death on the way out. Or maybe I will simply cease to think.
What do you see in your afterlife?
