Why I'm Awesome (Part 12 of 7,412): OMG

Every so often while at work I find a quiet moment in which to jot down a veritable onslaught of thoughts and opinions and, of course, bitching. Generally speaking, this salvo of aggressive typing is inspired simply by boredom, recent events, seething frustration with a lack of an alternate outlet, or writer's block. This particular instance is a combination of all three, as I simply cannot seem to write the latest part of my story in any fashion that I deem suitable to the rest of the book.

[ This post is brought to you by Andor, my fictional god of Might, named after a combination of Thor and the word "and." ]

When I started this tongue-in-cheek, fake-it-'til-you-make-it series of "Why I'm Awesome" proclamations, I promised myself that I would limit topics to those that tend to be less sensitive and emotional so as not to reveal my vulnerability and great insecurity. I have, naturally, failed in that attempt rather spectacularly, so there really is no point in further "censoring" such topics.

You may wonder, then, that with someone so emotionally volatile as myself, with an anger problem akin to a vicious, "all together now!" eruption of the Pacific Ring of Fire, why I have not written a particularly angry post for quite some time (see Parts 4 and 5).

The answer manifests itself in the simple fact that most of my bitching is now expressed in earnest to Iping the boyfriend and Romain the roommate, both of whom tend to be the most efficient receptors of the aforementioned bitching, as simply talking to them via messages or conversation does not warrant the composition of a literary firecracker.

Anyway, without the anger, I am left with controversy and thinking entirely too much.

Recent conversations with many friends, both offline and on, have basically led me to ask this question: do you believe in an afterlife?

I, for one, do not. I have not shared my religious beliefs in full up until now, but let's lead into this discussion with a sister question: do you believe in God?

For me, I am very indifferent. If he exists, great, if he doesn't, also great. This isn't even agnostic thinking, this is simply indifference to the idea of a greater power. (As background info, my mother was raised Catholic and my father believes that yes there is a supreme being but he'll be damned if he's told what to think by a book written by "guys like me who think they know it all but don't.")

Scenario A: God exists
So what? If God were to exist in the absolute definition presented by all religions who believe in one (or many), then "God" or "gods" possess omniscience beyond what we as humans can comprehend. This is, at least, what I am told over and over and over again. A supreme being isn't just a dude who happens to live forever and be able to make stuff, a supreme being, as defined by myself (and endorsed by many religious people I've spoken to) is all-seeing and all-knowing.

If God is all-seeing and all-knowing, he can also see what I like to call the Web of Causality. He can see this web of cause and effects, with all kinds of causes leading to all kinds of effects leading to all kinds of causes. It is not unreasonable to assume, just for fun, that he is able to see the entire web at once and, therefore, predict the future.

BUT FREE WILL! you cry adamantly. HE CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR FREE WILL!

How many of the choices you make are influenced by something you have seen or experienced? By genetics? Your own personality is sculpted by your genetic blueprint, your parents' upbringing, and your environment. Your ability to process what you see around you is directly influenced by everything that was used to make "you" into who you are.

Millions of causes can create one effect, and this effect can be anything in any moment in time of any scale. An effect can be a choice you make. It can be the location of a beetle on the street. It can be the weather.

So, theoretically, God could have predicted things a certain way and arranged events on his end to orchestrate an incredible complex web of causality that will eventually result in his end design. Why would he want to sit around watching when he knows what's going to happen?

Miracles? Miracles are just millions of threads in that web falling into place JUST RIGHT to produce a single effect that happens to be recognized as a "perfect" effect. They are extraordinarily rare, of course, which is why they are also "miracles," because if those kinds of things happen all the time then why do we call them miracles and not "everyday life?"

Chance? Say, why did you end up a girl instead of a boy? Chance, I think is also governed by cause. Say you roll the dice. The effect is a 5. The causes, then, are the weight of the die, the way it was made, the way it was rolled in your hand, and the way it was dropped onto the table. Say you shuffle the cards. The effect is that you draw an Ace. The causes are the state of the deck when you picked it up, how you shuffled it, how the deck was cut, and which cards are dealt. Even the act of shuffling is influenced by a series of tiny incidents, such as how many cards you pick up because your skin squeezes at a certain strength or angle.

My point here is that even when it comes down to chance, God can see the micro-micro-micro-causes that influence the outcome of an infinite number of causes. You really have to think outside the box here, folks. Way outside. Think beyond billions and trillions. Think beyond any number conceived by man, and now think smaller than anything you have previously heard of.

My personal conclusion is that if there is a God that is all-powerful, he doesn't really care about us anymore because he did what he needed to do thousands or millions of years ago and has since moved on to other pursuits like knitting.

If he isn't all-powerful, then what do I care, I can't tell him what to do, HE'S BIGGER THAN ME and knows more than me, so I might as well try to live with it, and honestly, why would I take him seriously to begin with if he were somehow fallible?

Scenario B: God doesn't exist
Well then the world is still governed by that web of causality, it's just that no one was around to set it in motion in the first place, it just kind of happened and I'll be damned if I make my brain explode by trying to theorize what "happened" when ultimately it doesn't particularly matter. I am here, now, and that is what matters to me.

That line of thinking governs my entire view on life itself: you are here, now, and that is what matters. You can prepare for the future, sure, but only insofar as you exist. You have no way of knowing what kind of impact your life may have on the future after you are gone. Really, the most direct influence you have is procreation, and even then, it's only in your hands for so long. That web of causality is so huge and what you do is such a miniscule, subatomic particle in it that why not focus on the things that you can directly influence, with your own two hands?

Similarly, I only have this life to live. I know I exist now, in this life. I don't know if I lived before and I don't care. I don't know if I will live after this and I don't care. What I know is in front of me and that is what matters. This life, not any other, is what matters.

I don't believe in an afterlife.

If there is a God, there's no guarantee that we're going to join him in his home after we die. If there isn't a God, there's nowhere to go ANYWAY.

I don't WANT an afterlife. If I get one, you can have it, I don't want it. I don't want to live forever. Why? Because the idea of living forever completely dilutes the value of the life I have now. It makes THIS life less precious because, hell, I'll live forever after I die anyway, so what's the point in valuing this life?

And seriously what the hell would I do for eternity?

Eternal happiness, to me, is unappealing because you only appreciate happiness when you have sadness worked in there somewhere. Always being happy is worthless if you don't have some bad times to experience to put things in perspective. So heaven and all heaven-like places can suck it. Eternal suffering? Sure, you can go the way of Tantalus and always be tempted by the good stuff but always have it out of reach, but am I really going to live THIS precious life that I have out of FEAR of punishment? Am I going to live a life governed by fear? (Fear, even, of something that might not even exist?)

No, I'm not.

I will live this life as a good person because this is the only life I have in which to BE a good person. I get no other chance. I will live this life as a good person because, ultimately, I live more happily as a good person. I am relatively guilt-free, I do not fear for my life, and everything I have, I owe to good people.

That's not to say I am purely good. No one is pure. Even unknowingly, unintentionally, you have screwed someone over, even though it might be a hundred hops away from your moment of causality. Think about the most and least significant thing you have done in the last 24 hours, and imagine how that might have affected someone close to you. Now imagine how that might have affected someone more removed, influenced by moments of causality in addition to yours.

It's not your FAULT, no, but had you not done X, then Y may never have happened, where Y is something bad to someone else.

No one is purely good, but you can be good in intention, which is what lets you sleep at night.

Yes, this belief does perpetuate discussions like "freedom fighters are killing for good intentions but they still suck at life." But hey, welcome to the state of the world. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? Who are you to deem who is better than someone else?

This belief is also why I am an advocate of the idea that as long as you are not hurting anyone (in any way, not just physically), then go ahead and do what you like. I can't read your mind, I don't know what your intentions are, I don't know what the circumstances are, but if you can sleep at night and if no one has suffered as a direct result of your actions to the best of your awareness, then I'm not going to judge you. That'd just a waste of time.

So, in conclusion: afterlife cheapens the life I have now, I do not believe in it. I also do not believe in living in fear of punishment (hell) or want of a reward (heaven), I believe in being a good person as far as you can push yourself to be one. I'm not telling you to believe what I believe. I'm just telling you WHAT I believe and why because this is my blog dammit and I am writing about myself.

TL;DR: fuck you go back to SE++ and maek poast cuz seriously you guys are the only ones who would skip to the end to see if this little tagline was even here