beautiful and sad all mixed into one.
Beautiful? Hm. It is sad indeed that there are those who view life and death in such simplistic, one-dimensional ways…
To think that viewing death as true finality is viewing it in a simplistic, one dimensional manner is to gloss over the complexity of understanding life as a finite experience within an infinite timeline. If I were to state that viewing life as an ongoing experience—even after death—as a simplistic, one dimensional view, I’m sure you would take umbrage to the statement. Each of us may have different thoughts on permanence, impermanence, infinity, life, death. and our place in these concepts, and none of them are one dimensional or simplistic. Thoughts, understandings, and all the facets of a person’s experiences are multidimensional and complex. Dismissing legitimate and rational views in such a callous manner does yourself—and your own experiences—a disservice.
Perhaps, but viewing life as a finite thing is one-dimensional and simplistic nevertheless. It is also completely irrational and lacking in any evidence to support it.
If we admit the existence of infinity or eternity—and really how could we not?—then we must abandon our cute little constructs of linear thinking…whether about time or space or ourselves. The universe does not have a beginning, middle, or end. In the face of eternity it simply can’t. Only the beginning can exist, a never-ending, infinite becoming.
If space is infinite in all directions, then every single point in it is the exact center. If time is eternal, then every single moment in it is the very beginning….
To think that you or I appeared out of nowhere, for no reason at all, to abide only briefly and then vanish forever is simplistic, one-dimensional, and irrational, and there’s really no other way to see it.
