Lately, I've been thinking about how if I could just create my own universe (or just tweak this one) I'd focus on making sure that as far as the afterlife was concerned, there won't be a heaven, but there certainly will be a hell.
A no heaven situation sounds cruel to those looking forward to it, but, honestly, I'm not that big on the concept. The idea of spending eternity as a perfect, stagnant being sounds like a duller version of torment than anything to look forward to. Also the idea of a god gathering his faithful so they can do nothing but say how incredible he is for the rest of time seems less like a reward for the faithful and more like a petty, jealous god suckering people into giving him the validation he's apparently so desperate for and pretend like he's doing them a favor.
Blasphemy aside, I also feel like the idea of heaven partly plays a role in making us take the people in our lives for granted, and that opens us up to regrets and grief we just don't need. We let people slip in and out of our lives because we tell ourselves that there'll be a later time, that we'll see them in a place where time doesn't matter anymore and whatever we missed while they were here, we can make up and more. But then the people we care about die and the mantra of "We'll see them again, we'll see them again" against that sudden doubt that no, they're gone and we're never going to see them again. At that point, I think paradise becomes less of an assurance and more of a way for us to drown out that sudden fear that everything we get told to mitigate death just isn't true. The fear that this is all we have is so deeply ingrained in us and is something we fight so vehemently against that I have a hard time believing it isn't true. We wouldn't work so hard to bury that fear if we didn't think it was real, so, for me, that's the biggest proof I can point to.
The difference is, I don't see that as a bad outcome. If this is all we have, then it becomes even more important for us to make our lives mean something. And I don't mean that in the "if our lives aren't changing the whole world they're meaningless" way, I just mean that in we have to make our lives mean something to ourselves, that when we go through them it doesn't feel like our waking moments are a burden. We exist for such a short time in a world that couldn't give a shit about us but instead of letting that define us, we fight and scrape our way to building friends, families, lives, and work that will make people remember us when we're gone. We may be nothing more than drops in the ocean, but all of us make a ripple. To live in a world where everyone is screaming to be heard yet we still find people willing to listen to us? How is that not enough?
Yes, that we're gone forever never to be seen again is sad. Crushing, really. But we couldn't have poignancy without grief, so, that seems like a fair trade, in the end.
All of that- fade away into nothing at the end- still leaves a bad taste in my mouth because that seems like too good an ending for more people than you can count on this planet. That so many will just die and then... nothing feels like a cheap ploy, like they're getting the easy way out. Which is why I would really insist on having a hell but not a heaven. Basically, it would make life into a threat: Be good, or live forever.
The nice thing about it is it wouldn't be limited. All the people voting for Roy Moore because it's more important that he has an "R" after his name than he hunted teenage girls? Cosmic kindling. Everyone who turned a blind eye and made sure people like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and all the rest go about their business for decades on end? Up in smoke for eternity. The operating principle would be that yeah, the people committing the harm and the suffering deserve to endure all that and more once they're gone, but the ones who abet them along the way is what allows that harm to grow, to evolve, to survive well past the time the act was committed. In this hell, we'd acknowledge that the ones who nursed the more active residents along have hands just as dirty and deserve to burn as much if not more so.
Alas, that's built on as much fantasy as heaven. We fuck up so much and so incredibly that hell is just us wishing there's something, anything out there waiting to clean up our mess. "Oh, you let rapists get away with for decades on end? No worries, we got you." It's a bigger shame that we don't have a hell, especially now that we live in a time replete with so many who would deserve it. It's that same nothing that gnaws at us, that makes us wish there was a place of tearing and slashing that would render unto them that earned it all that they were due. This time, we're trying to avoid the thought that no matter what a person did, in the end, they always get better than they deserve.
In the end, we belong to ourselves, and it's high time we faced up to that. Let's stop fantasizing and wishing that there's a place where we find the peace we never looked for here or that all the terrible people we let slide by will get what's theirs somewhere that isn't here. Since this is all we'll have and all we're ever going to be, let's at least make it count.
No comments:
Post a Comment