Things that occasionally worry me: Death edition

Last night, before bed, I reread the penultimate and final chapter of Berimbau's Letters. I even made some minor adjustments to the final, though I'm dissatisfied with it. It made me feel good to read the penultimate chapter again: these are characters, people with personalities, desires, they're moving, it's interesting. I don't know if I like the outcome, still. Should Berimbau kill Calabash instead? I don't know. I like that she doesn't. But there's no logic there, no reason.

In the final chapter, she's meant to be speaking to-- meeting with-- Sisobi at last. He wants her help so badly, and she agrees, and that's not bad, per se. It's not awful, I guess. Is it right, though? I don't know. I like it, and I don't like it. As the sun rises over Tammbali and they walk towards the mountains, she sees that the city is wildly colorful, nothing like it had seemed before. I like that. I like this framework. I don't know if I like the unanswered questions (the questions themselves, I like to HAVE unanswered questions but are the ones I left unanswered the RIGHT ones), and I might change things. I don't know. But the stuff to make it work is there.

At the time I wrote it, I had changed the ending several times over. At first, they had to hide in the mountains, got lost in caves, and were entrapped beneath the surface by another race of aliens not currently a part of the story. Then I changed it so that Jakre was working with the aliens, and had betrayed Berimbau. Then I didn't like that so much, so they fled to the mountains, were captured, and the aliens tried to make Berimbau their surrogate leader but she used the power to escape. They climbed to the top of the mountains, where the gold bushes were putting out their pollen, and ancient ruins remained of Sisobi's people. Then they returned to Tammbali to free him. In practice, I cut all this out, thinking 'no, these things don't really make sense or add to the story. They're wild and interesting to write, but they don't really connect or have purpose.' Though the ruins meant something to me, maybe they weren't needed so much, I thought.

After going over this and being both encouraged and discouraged by what I found, I watched a bunch of clips of Adventure Time on Youtube (using the official 'channel' provided by CN; regrettably, CN has yet to release a full season of the show on DVD so I can't watch it for realsies. I think I would, probably. It seems like the kind of show I like, mixed with a lot of crazy elements that are visually appealing to me). When I was tired, I got ready to join Danny in bed and sleep. Lots of work to do, so I knew I needed to get to it ASAP.

My right hand had gone a little numb from sitting so long shifted to the side, which was a weird posture choice, unusual for me. Between that, and seeing myself in the mirror, and the late hour, my thoughts started going south. When I think about death, I get very frightened. The knowledge that someday, I will not be is hard to accept, because I don't understand what it is to think, feel, breathe no more. I think, 'I'll be so frightened when it happens' because no matter what, I can't imagine dying and being okay with it. I suspect my final thoughts will be 'Not yet! Not yet! I still want to do so much!'

I know some people find comfort in religion. Religion, spiritualism, these things promise a sort of comfort. If one follows these teachings, there is probably a force somewhere in the universe that spurred the creation of the universe, and possibly life in particular, and there may be a reason for it all. There may be a purpose greater than simply 'to have been'. To know that one day, you will not. I don't follow a particular religion-- I don't like groupthink, for one-- but I sometimes feel comfortably half-certain that there is some kind of spiritual force that spurs the universe onward, that is the source, at some point, for the things that are.

One of the reasons I do not subscribe to religion is that I cannot find comfort in the promises given by the religions that exist. I might find comfort in the heaven/hell schism, but aside from arbitrary justice, I don't know what to assume heaven would be except more of life. I love life. And hell-- long ago, I once imagined hell to be a prison, glass bubbles sitting separate, each too far to hear or clearly see the next, cold and empty and boring and mindless, and lonely. And that's what I imagine if I try to tell myself there are places you go after you die. What of these places? What are they? Rebirth seems potentially like it banishes my upset; but from a scientific perspective, I know that eventually the Earth will still die. Is all life a race against time? We must flee the planet before extinction is a certainty and make more life elsewhere? Or would we then be forever fleeing from the worlds that we made our new homes? (A hopelessness arises here, reminding me of Unicorn Jelly's similar story.) Sure, I could be reborn and reborn ad infinitum. Maybe my spirit would linger and yet exist somewhere. But eventually, someone would be faced with the death of the world, or the star, or the universe. The heat death of the universe upsets me much more than it should. Hence, Captain Awesome's mission to prevent it.

It boils down to this: I am afraid of what I do not know and cannot know. I can know a lot of awful things. I don't really like the idea of knowing them, but I don't fear them in the same way. Dying, I can't know without ceasing to live. And when I think about it, try to imagine it, I horrify myself again and again. It comforts me to believe that ghosts are real, because as frightening as ghosts are at three in the morning when it's hard to sleep, if ghosts exist I can pretend that two hundred years from now, a little girl will be reading books I'm totally going to publish, and thinking about how she will live her life.

I have trouble wanting children for the same reason that I had Mulligan die in the Promethean game. Who could want to force such suffering on another person? Maybe a child I had would not feel this fear I do, but if they did, why? Why does life have to be centered around the knowledge that it will end?

I take a sort of comfort from films like Zardoz, but it also upsets me. Being nihilistic doesn't help more than being spiritualistic, animistic, buddhist, zen, whatever. Normally, I can distract myself and my life goes on and I don't worry too much about dying. But every now and then... Every now and then, I am the thought floating away, meaningless and never-was, never-will-be like the character at the end of The Mysterious Stranger.

Last night was one of those. And it was one of the worst. I was so upset, nothing stopped it; not holding myself or petting the cat (cat, whose mortality is more horrific every time I think about it. No, DON'T die! I don't want to be in the time where it might happen.) or trying to catch my breath. Danny woke up and wondered what was wrong. I was so upset I couldn't stop shaking or crying. I cried so much my face hurt, it was awful and stupid and for a while, even holding him didn't make it feel less awful. Someday, someday, I thought, someday I'll be old and you'll be old and mortality will linger. Will children banish the sense of mortality or will they exacerbate it? Would I want to have children, knowing someday they might feel the same way I did?

Then I finally cried myself out and could sleep, with the cat purring and Danny fallen asleep again but determinedly holding my hand, and I was glad that most of the time, I don't immediately and endlessly think about this, or I really would go crazy.

This morning on the way in to work, I called Danny and we talked as we were driving our separate ways.

Danny: I must have taken longer showering than I meant!
Dev: It took extra time getting all those tears out of your chest hair.
Danny: I'd forgotten about that. Are you okay?
Dev: I'm better now. I worry sometimes that it's crazy, to obsess over things like that. Maybe it is. Maybe I need help.
Danny: It probably makes you a better author. All the authors who count as 'literature' seem a bit obsessed with death.
Dev: Hah! Maybe so.

What I mean to say is, even though I have fear that it's a cruel thing to do, I wholly understand why people have children; and even though I think organized religion is weird and I don't like it very much, myself, I understand why they exist and why people find comfort in them.

I'll write another, less depressing post later. Right now I've got to focus on work I've been slow on today due to trying to get my marbles all in order.

Also, I want to affirm that I think you're all awesome, and I'm glad I live in a time that contains you.