As it has crossed over the midnight threshold, I am officially a year older.
That is not much of an achievement really, yet sometimes I kind of think that it is. Because the older we get, it means that we are more likely to have faced all kinds of life-ending challenges but didn't succumb to the long, dirt nap. So I guess getting a year older means that a person has probably cheated death a fair bit. At least , I think that is the case for me, as I have had my fair share of near death experiences.
You?
I won't get into listing them now.
However, at my grand old age of forty seven, I would have been statistically dead in the US in 1900. Not that people actually died at that age, but due to high infant mortality and death in childhood, the average was skewed. Still, things have come a long way since then, with technological advancement making infant mortality very low indeed. In the developed world at least.
Yet, with all the advancements we have made to save lives, we have also advanced the ways we take lives too, where hundreds of thousands of people could be killed in an instant, or tens of thousands in a short time frame with a few drone bombing runs for a more targeted approach. We put a lot of effort into saving lives, only to put a huge amount of effort into taking lives instead. And I think it comes down to the fact that while saving lives is expensive and that life can be a consumer, it is far more profitable to take lives.
I get that terrible people and evil regimes are given as reason for more lives to be taken, more money, time and effort to be spent, but it is ultimately an unwinnable strategy. There is no end to terrible people and evil regimes, as long as we keep using violence as the solution, because it just inspires more terror or, it creates a control vacuum that will be filled by someone terrible or an evil regime over time. They might not start out evil, but power corrupts, no matter the initial intentions.
Pretty much the only way out of this is to break the repetitive cycle that we keep finding ourselves in, but it won't happen, because to do so will be taken advantage of by the already terrible and evil. No group can say no to violence, because they will meet a violent end and they hands of those who don't say no. It is a broken situation, which ends up just playing out as a tug-of-war game where various sides are pulling the rope in their direction, toward their cause, their agenda.
You only live once.
This is what I believe. However, perhaps one of the major problems is that most people believe in an afterlife, which means they have multiple lives. A "near death" experience might provide a person in the only live once camp to want to live more, experience more, love more. However, a similar experience for an afterlife believer could give them a different lesson, one where they see death as a gateway to a better life, in the after. A martyr for the cause, whether it be for a religion, country or a government, who will get some reward in a promised future.
It kind of feels like a scam, doesn't it?
Some of my friends were stuck in Dubai with their families, and a couple more were flying back from various areas through a narrow corridor from the east to the west, splitting war zones. They likely all feel like they have experienced something meaningful, like seeing the interceptor missiles taking out missile strikes, and will be glad to be home. But what they may have a newfound appreciation for, is the relative stability back home.
This is the lesson though, isn't it?
This is where our global resources should be spent. On stability. Not stability of experience where nothing changes, or even stability of government, or economy. But what we should be looking to build is stability for the basics in life, food, shelter, energy, society, opportunity. It shouldn't be a world of provide for some at the expense of others, because that will always end up being engineered to create more situations where terrible people can create evil regimes. Because people who are suffering and needing, are easier to control than people who are not.
Death is a natural part of life, but what is not natural is living for an afterlife. Whether there is an afterlife or not, the concept of living for one is a manmade creation. This doesn't mean we should treat the current moment as the only moment, because in all likelihood, the next moment is going to happen. But it doesn't matter if we have an afterlife or not, what we can predict is that people alive now will live longer than we will, and there will likely be more people coming who will live after we have already died.
That is our afterlife.
After we are dead, life goes on.
In my opinion, death is the end of me, but it isn't the end of us. That means that what I do, whether good or bad, will live on through others, whether they be family, friends, or strangers. And I think that if we were all looking to build opportunity and wellbeing for us all, the reverberating impact past any single individual would have a high compounded effect for the better. But because we keep running around in a circle of power and corruption, fear and violence, our forward progress is not just slowed, but can reverse direction and send us into decline.
Some say their near death experiences have made them better people. But the truth of whether they are better or not lays in their actions past that point. If they then go out and continue amplifying fear and violence, how can they be better?
I don't know if I am better or worse from my near death experiences.
For now, life goes on and every moment I have the chance to act.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
- Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences.
- Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network
- Engage well with me and others and put in effort
And you may be rewarded.
Happy Birthday to you! You are killing it (by not taking that dirt nap! I wish you long life and many more birthdays.
Sometimes the dirt nap sounds quite inviting!
I don't think you only live once (maybe some people do?), or maybe I only think that because some of my "memories" are a bit weird (didn't even happen to me just for starters, and they're not scenes from movies/tv shows/games/books and they're not things that I wrote though some of them definitely inspired some stuff I ended up writing, the only other thing I got is that while I allegedly have "a good imagination" if it's powerful enough to do that I might have an actual problem).
I'm much less sure about afterlives though.
The other thing I know relatively certainly is that evil terrible people eventually lose everything, just sadly not always in their pathetic excuses for lifetimes or otherwise nearly soon enough for everyone they also cause to lose everything.
Happy birthiversary, hope you had a slightly more fun and cheerful day than what the post would suggest XD
So you are unsure if it is channelling the lives of another or a different time, or delusion? Interesting!
It seems the worst on earth rarely get a timely serve of just deserts.
I got a fruit plate for breakfast, so that was nice :)
If I have a few more instances of "oh I've been here before" somewhere I've never been before then maybe it might not be delusional but that's only happened once. So until then everything is an option XD
Aww that's cute :D
47? You old cunt!
Not as old as some though I suppose.
:D
Have a wonderful birthday. Health, wealth and happiness to you and your family, young man. At a few weeks from the big six-o, you are still young. Everything is relative :-)
60! That is indeed grand-elder territory in 1900 :D
(These days, middle age?)
Happy Birthday. I actually wrote a post about this a while ago where I was talking about my battle with cancer and if really made me a different person on the other side of it. I can't honestly say. I'd like to think I am better, but there are some who would probably argue I'm still a dick.
I assume there are always people who can argue this about all of us. The one-third rule of like/hat/don't care comes into play.
Yeah, I guess so.
The idea of “you only live once” can definitely push people to experience life more intensely. But belief in an afterlife does not necessarily mean people treat this life as less valuable, bcz I am one of them. For many, it actually creates a stronger sense of accountability and responsibility toward others, because actions here are believed to have consequences beyond this life. We are accountable for our deeds, like if I am doing good deeds; I am going to the paradise, otherwise the perfect hell awaits.
Also, it is interesting how language frames our thinking. In Urdu, the word used for a birthday is “Salgirah". Literally it comes from “saal” (year) and “girah”, which can imply a year passing or being tied off - almost like another year of life being spent rather than gained. Yet culturally it is still celebrated, which shows that people often see time both ways, something we lose and something we gain in experience.
Btw, Happy Birthday to YOU!
Yes. So people go out of their way to "do good" but their good is often derived from a social and cultural programming. Doing good can be bombing another country for oil, or it can be getting on a bus with a bomb strapped to the chest. People are still accountable, but under the belief that their violence is a good.
This is interesting. I prefer it that way. What have we done in the last year spent? Have we used it wisely?
Bombing another country for the oil's sake or a piece of land is primarily because of two reasons: political gain or absurd nationalism. Bomb strapped to the chest, it follows the same pattern as above. The only difference is the later onr is back door, or the ducking superiority complex.
The fun part is the logical one or the sane one are bombing each other, rather than, finding a solution for this extremism :)
Happy Birthday! May you live another 47 years!
Not sure I want to. 94 seems useless to me! :D
Happy Birthday mate! Every year gives us an opportunity to think about what we have done and how it affects everything around us ;)
And I am disappointed! :D
When I was in Soviet school, 99% of people didn't believe in fairy tales about the afterlife. It was the same at university. I think some doubts arose as people got older, but it wasn't faith; rather, they became agnostics. Atheists and believers are very similar: they are 100% certain of their point of view.
I am pretty pragmatic on it. If I am wrong, so be it. At least it will be evidence based and I can accept it.
Happy birthday.
Sending you 1000000 Hive gift...I wish you good health and many more happy years.and Hive price recovery.Wouldn't that be a nice present to get :)
Congratulations!
I got one year older a week ago :)
Congrats mate. Hope you celebrated well :)
Your point about humanity investing so much into saving lives while also perfecting ways to destroy them is something that feels painfully true. Technological progress has given us the ability to reduce suffering in many ways, yet the same progress also increases our capacity for violence. It often feels like humanity is constantly balancing between compassion and power.
Power keeps winning.
happy birthday to you! i'm not a fan of the afterlife premise either. especially that bit about being rewarded in the next one and being miserable and suffering in this. i think you're kinda responsible for the life you build for yourself and others (which i reckon you resonate with). I hope it's a good day, T :)
Yeah. The afterlife chasers can do as they please, but I don't meet many who are actually looking to make life better now.
Happy birthday. May you live to 100, and may it be a life filled with happiness and joy too.
I hope you celebrated in grand style. Not many live to 47 nowadays. And then you get to sit and plan for the many days ahead of you.
At least I am not in a wheelchair drooling yet :)
Congratulations!
I hope you have a fantastic day, full of health and joy!🍀
I want to thank you once again for sharing your ideas and reflections. You manage to summarize in a few words ideas that are indeed very important. Although I believe that life does not end when we die, I do not think that this can justify less appropriate or more violent actions. I think the idea that life continues gives even more value to what we experience now. Knowing that the people we know are still here, and that our children will live their lives here, should only make us more eager to provide them with a better future. Otherwise, what is the point of living longer if the next steps are to destroy others or attack them?
Thanks :)