I've been reading a book by Jim Holt called Why Does the World Exist?. It's been an interesting romp through various philosophers and thinkers over the ages from the Greeks to today concerning the question. The book, of course, does not resolve the issue. No, it's a series of interviews and explorations of man's attempts to resolve this question. Along the way, you will find yourself falling into one camp or another or some mixture thereof.
He ends the book reflecting on the essence of self. It got me to thinking (once again) about how existence itself is the ultimate joke. It makes me wonder if the Watchmen's Comedian would have agreed?
How is it a joke? Well...you didn't ask for your existence, but you were given it anyway, and it will be taken away from you whether you like it or not. Our lives, at least when compared to the eons that the universe has existed, are likenable to the quantum foam. As quantum physics points out, space is not really empty. Even in the vacuum, at the tiniest of levels, particle pairs emerge from spacetime itself but only fleetingly.
Their existence, like ours, is on borrowed time and they will soon return to the nothingness whence they came. It happens all around us all the time and all the while not violating physical principles.
The universe is what, about fourteen billion years old?, and it will continue for an untold amount of eons. And do we get? If we're lucky, about eighty years. Eighty years versus fourteen billion.
And it's a wonderful thing too. Even if your life is shitty, existence is still the most fucking amazingly amazing thing ever in all of ever...but it's not yours to keep. You get a piece of it and then you lose it...forever. Sure, non-existence could be likened to the billions of years you didn't exist and thought of as not such a big deal to return to but that doesn't bring me any comfort...at least not after learning what existence has to offer.
The thing is, when I was born, I didn't know what I had been missing out on. I also couldn't know what I had been missing out on. I had to figure it all out (or at least a portion of it). But when it comes to dying, you know know damn well what you're going to be missing out on (or at least that you're going to be missing out). It's so impishly cruel to do to someone.
Either way, I assure you I will be kicking and screaming like a little bitch when my time comes. I will hold on to reality for as long as I can muster.
Are suitably arranged brains required for consciousness or do the particles themselves comprising the universe come ready-made with such an endowment? It makes me wonder of life's other forms. Are insects aware of their
existence? Do they have a sense of self? Do trees? How about slime molds, or even bacteria? How many animals are born only to die within minutes of their birth? How many seeds sprout only to grow a few leaves before dying? And even with humanity, after watching a documentary on World War II from Japan's point of view, there were babies suffocated by their mothers in caves under orders by their military to prevent their location from being discovered by the Americans. Those babies had only a few months of existence before they were returned to the void. It just seems so ridiculously pointless.
I guess...take existence while you can and make of it what you will for surely it shall soon be gone is all that can be said.
I will return to the void neither silently nor with begrudging acceptance. I will return with a "Fuck you!" on my lips. How dare "you", whoever "you" are, tease me with such wonders only to capriciously take them away!!! I guess what bugs me most, is like those particle pairs mentioned above, the choice to exist and to cease to exist were never mine to make. Stupid random chance...
In the meantime, I shall live and enjoy myself :-)
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