Mortality

Every now and then, I'd get a little melancholy and ponder my place in the universe. Fact is, we're all here for far less than the blink of an eye as the universe goes. During that brief period, all we can do is impact those around us, being positively or negatively.

When I was young, the days seemed plentiful. I looked eagerly to my birthdays, the only time in the year when I got presents of toys and whatnot (we didn't celebrate Christmas). All I wanted to do was for the days to pass quickly. Now, in the latter part of my middle age, I'm starting to face the fact that I'm mortal, that someday, Death will come to me and take me away.

I'm not sure I'm afraid of that. I view it with some anxiety, of course. If we do disappear into nothingness, that wouldn't be too bad. If we get parsed into heaven, hell or some other place within the spectrum of good and evil, at least there is some closure. I suspect that death is something altogether different. Occam's Razor says that we simply...stop existing. That there isn't an afterlife. Once our time here has come and gone, that's pretty much it. I've experienced enough to know that science doesn't answer everything. While I'm not willing to believe in superstition lest they take away my status as a Handmaiden of Science (tm), I'm also not entirely willing to believe that oblivion awaits.

It's hard to explain how I feel simply because my feelings are very conflicted. There is a part of me that welcomes the end of this hardship and toil we go through in this existence of ours. I don't discount that perhaps there may be other kinds of hardship and toil awaiting us after this life but I don't know what they are. My loved ones know what my ideal afterlife would look like, if there is an afterlife. All I can do is to hope that I end up there.

Viewing one's mortality every now and then is a good thing, I think. It gives me perspective on what I'm doing. Does my job matter? Yes...but not in the long run. It pays the bills but it doesn't prepare my kids for the life they're going to have. Do my hobbies matter? Yes...but only to me, unless if I make some amazing new discovery that will benefit humankind, like solving the mysteries of the universe or at the very least, figuring out how to get the caramel into the Caramilk bar.

Our existence matters...and it doesn't. All I can do is to make the best choices I can make for not only myself but for those I care for.