This mess is here to stay

There are times — which, for some reason, tend to occur when I'm lying in bed and it's dark, particularly between 5 and 9 in the afternoon — when the possibility of ceasing to exist — i.e. dying and there not being an afterlife — comes to my mind in a particularly vivid and persistent manner, not surprisingly making me rather gloomy and distressed. I call it a "possibility" partly because I don't want to give up hope, and partly because, even from a strictly scientific viewpoint, nobody can be sure that death is the end. The other "possibility", however, seems less and less plausible.

I'm not one of those lucky people that say they don't care that they won't exist any more after they die. "Once you've died you won't be there to be depressed about it, so what's there to worry about?" As if not suffering was all there is to it. The problem is precisely "not being there"! How could I ever be okay with that? It somehow seems that we're expected to be "mature" and have come to terms with it, but I can't help but think of death — if it really is the end — as the greatest unjustice, the cruelest joke.

The other day I was on my lunch break at work, looking forward to a quiet twenty minutes eating my meal and browsing through some of the free newspapers that were lying around. In fact I had decided to take my lunch break earlier than usual so that I could be on my own. Less than five minutes into the break I was sharing my table with a group of five of six people that I know only vaguely with whom I was supposed to have some sort of interaction. That was bad in itself, but then one of them took centre stage when he began recounting ready-made anecdotes selected from the last edition of the Darwin Awards, which are given to people that die for their own misjudgement or incompetence in a stupid and supposedly comical way. "They died when they fell off the roof of a house after having made love on top of it. Hehehe! And then this other woman had her head crushed by a lift when she was peering through the shaft. Hahaha!" I wasn't in a position to speak my mind, but I was positively despising this guy and the moron that answered back with equally tasteful and witty jokes. I don't want to become a self-righteous prig — I must confess that I smiled when I read some of things in the Wikipedia entry on the Darwin Awards — but, I'm sorry, death is not funny. At least not the real death of a real person.

The kind of angst I was talking about resembles the feeling I get with some nightmares. "How the hell did I get into this mess? Something isn't quite right here." Sometimes that strange unease resolves into the realisation that I was only dreaming, whether or not I then wake up. And then I get a feeling that says, "Phew! That was too absurd to be true. Thank God for real life, so realiable and so normal." But there are other times when that feeling is stickier and lingers on even after I've woken up. Knowing as I do that it is harmless, temporary and probably meaningless, it is an interesting thing to experience and observe. By contrast, the I-don't-want-to-die angst is all too meaningful, and it really is no fun. It'll go away — and come back at some point —, of course it will, but not because I realise the mess I was in was only a dream. This mess is here to stay.

Conversations with God

(18/06/09 Note: I've sometimes felt uncomfortable remembering the spiteful tone of this post, but for honesty's sake I've decided to leave it as it is. It would be great to be all-loving and compassionate — or would it? — but I'm not. So, ladies and gentemen, this is me pissed off:)

A few years ago I bought Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh, read the first few chapters and didn't find it particularly inspiring, so, as I often do, I literally shelved it. Some weeks ago I decided to give it another go — it is often regarded as a modern spiritual classic after all — but this time in audio-book format. I listened to the whole book and also to books two and three. My verdict? An outrageous pile of crap. If you're not familiar with it, the book is written, as it name implies, as a conversation between the author and God. That is one of the first problems I have with it: the guy really thinks he was taking dictation from God. That in itself would be enough to chuck the book in the bin, but audio-books demand so little effort on the part of the listener that I carried on anyway. It really isn't worth going into in much detail, but let me just present some of the most pathetic highlights of the book.

In page 44 of the first book God says that believing in him produces "unlimited potential". After some discussion the author mentions "the question of the feeble, the infirm, the handicapped, those who are limited", to which God retorts:

Do you think they are limited, as you put it, not of their choice? Do you imagine that a human soul encounters life challenges -- whatever they may be -- by accident? Is this your imagining?

ibid, page 45

You think that is outrageous? You haven't heard anything yet. (The author's words are written in red.)

All illness is created first in the mind.

How can that be? What of conditions contracted from another? Colds -- or, for that matter, AIDS?

Nothing occurs in your life — nothing — which is not first a thought. Thoughts are like magnets, drawing effects to you. The thought may not always be obvious, and thus clearly causative, as in, "I'm going to contract a terrible disease." The thought may be (and usually is) far more subtle that that. ("I am not worthy to live.") ("My life is always a mess.") ("I am a loser.") ("God is going to punish me.") ("I am sick and tired of my life!") [The repetitive use of parentheses is in the original.]

ibid, page 188

So now you know. People suffering from AIDS were infected because they thought they weren't worthy to live. Can you stomach some more of this crap?

And if you've ever taken alcohol into your body, you have very little will to live.

I drink very moderately.

The body was not meant to intake alcohol. It impairs the mind.

[...]

But even some medicines contain alcohol!

I have no control over what you call medicine. I'll stay with my statement.

ibid, pages 191-192

Driking implies having very little will to live. Thinking that you're tired of life is the sort of thing that makes you get AIDS. I suppose beer must, therefore, cause AIDS.

Your life work is a statement of Who You Are. If it is not, then why are you doing it?

Do you imagine that you have to?

You don't have to do anything.

[...]

If "woman who works at job [sic] she hates in order to meet responsibilities as she sees them" is Who You Are, then love, love, love your job, for it totally supports your Self image, your Self concept.

[...]

No one does anything he doesnt't want to do.

ibid, page 186

OK, you tell that to the millions of families for whom scavenging their local rubbish dump constitutes their only means of subsistence. What planet does this idiot come from? But it can always get worse:

Hitler did nothing wrong. Hitler simply did what he did. [...] The mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused. Those souls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterflies emerging from a cocoon.

Conversation with God, Book Two, page 42

Hitler was created by you. He arose out of your Collective Consciousness. [...] The consciousness of separation, segregation, superiority — of "we" versus "they," of "us" and "them" — is what creates the Hitler Experience.

ibid, page 55

Not to put too fine a point on it, what a fucking prick.

Less outrageous highlights include the revelation that "the US Constitution was God inspired. The same balance of powers should be built in to the new world constitution" (ibid, somewhere between pages 204 and 208) and the unqualified endorsement of psychics and healers of any kind.

Why is this kind of crap even published? How does it become a bestseller? This idiot really makes me violent. If I don't mend my ways I'm going to bring some fatal disease upon myself, and then, in a bout of insanity, I'll go and strangle him for suggesting that it's all been the consequence of my having negative thoughts, but that won't be wrong anyway, because I will only have liberated him from his earthly bondage.