Dead

Hello, August.

Do you guys think about death a lot? I never really did, not even during that time when I was what my mom would call a "gloomy Gus." Because what is death, really? Isn't it just that one moment when you cease to exist? When your heart beats its last beat and your brain waves its last wave? Because before that moment is life, obviously, and we can't really call the state after that moment "death" because our bodies would have no clue that they were once alive since our consciousness or our soul or whatever you want to call it will have left. So while the living may refer to us as being "dead," our bodies are not really "being" anything. They're lifeless and unaware of anything, like a twig or a fallen leaf.

So really, whenever I do think of death, I think something along the lines of, "I hope I don't drown or suffocate," or "It would suck to die of hunger or thirst," or "I really hope I go to sleep and just never wake up. That would be nice." Otherwise, I don't think about it at all. But I think about the afterlife a lot. That's the part that comes after the moment of death.

I think about the afterlife a lot.

Really, there are only two options when it comes to the afterlife: either 1) there is one, and 2) there isn't one. I would like to think there is one because 1) it wouldn't be all that fun if all we had was 75 years or so on earth, and 2) I'd like for there to be a reason for all those Christmases I'd patiently waited until 12 am on the 26th to finally blow a load.

If there is an afterlife (and I certainly hope so), I have a pretty good idea of what I want to be there. The first would be a database of some sort where I would be able to look up any mystery on earth I could think of and find the answer. Where are Mozart and Jimmy Hoffa buried? Just type it in and find out. Is that guy in the photo really Jimmy Carroll? Did Jose Mangual really play percussion on that track? How old really is Andrea's mom? How do you read elvish? I think it would be fair that all the questions that were never answered while we were alive be answered when we move on.

The second thing I'd like to have in the afterlife is a kind of video game where you can go back to various points in your life and do things differently and see how things end up. What if that night you'd told her that you were a huge Buffy, Angel, and Firefly fan? Would that get you anywhere? What if you said you just loved Blue Oyster Cult, AC/DC, and Metallica? What if you said you were into Celtic runes and knots, and Celtic and Pagan music? How would things have turned out? What if you'd leaned over and, well... Didn't work out? Try something else--try not making that remark about your bookstore co-worker being cranky because "she probably had her period or something."

I wonder, will I still want all this in the afterlife when I'm much older? I hope to live a fulfilling enough life to not have to concern myself with such stupidity when I get there. I hope we all do.