Occasionally, I contemplate my mortality.
At one time, life seemed to stretch on for ever, but as one gets older and friends start to die, you realise that at some point you will die too. Some have a strong belief in an afterlife. Others are less sure.
As a youth I had quite a strong faith, but these days I am unsure. The truth is not one of us can be sure. When our neurons stop firing is that it? Do we just cease to be? What is certain is how little we know. Just look back over the last 200 years and think how our understanding has changed.
Perhaps we should not worry too much about death. After all, we all share this fate and no-one honestly has any idea.
I think the big mystery is human consciousness - just what is it that makes us us? Maybe one day we will have some answers. In the meantime, as I read somewhere, we have Covid-19 to beat and the next solar cycle to enjoy.
The way people seem to “have faith” does change with age. Certitude is very important in our twenties, because we’re launching out on the life adventure and want to have strong bearings as young adults. Complexity creeps in with the decades, and I think therefore what it means to “have faith” in our sixties and seventies must take account of life experience and the fact that it’s less important for us to be certain of things. However, the beauty of life, and the sense of it running out brings a different perspective. The search for integrity becomes very important, but the importance of having bearings returns, not for life, but for “after life”. So the search continues and maybe T.S. Eliot was right in a way, that “in my end is my beginning.” Returning to the place where we started and knowing it as if for the first time.
ReplyDeleteG0OER (and also a priest!)
The Four Quartets by T.S.Eliot have a lot of depth.
ReplyDeleteBTW, thank you. I do not know your name.
ReplyDeletePaul Roberts. QTH Bristol.
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