nessus's Diaryland Diary
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Trezzy's entry inspired me. And seeing as how I can't sleep because my sister and her cohorts throught it'd be a good idea to play fetch with the dog in the living room which is above my room at 3:30AM I can't think of anything better to do.
Death. Death to me doesn't really mean a whole lot. This animated golem of carbon and amino acids will one day cease to be. I've known it since I was a child and I haven't feared it for about as long.
And I think a golem is a pretty accurate metaphor. We rise up out of the universe, a small part of the universe becomes self-aware for a short period of time, and then it returns to the dirt from whence it came, returns to the universe.
I probably won't live long enough to see humanity develop immortality, an eventuality which I think is inevitable if we don't kill ourselves off with nuclear war or some other equally inane punctuation to our species.
And I'm not so sure I'd want immortality. Besides the obvious problems of clunky implimentation (if being immortal means "living" like the world's current oldest humans, count me out), I think it'd get boring awfully quick.
The way I see it the concept of an afterlife and the desire for immortality are the result of an over developed self-preservation instinct.
The desire for a personal god stems partly from our unnaturally large societies. Civilization is inherently in conflict with our evolutionary psychologies, and, indeed, with evolution itself (but that's an all together different topic).
Humans evolved in small nomadic tribes. Our entire psychologies are written around such an existance. If you had a gripe with how things were being run you could talk to the chief and expect to see real change; the chief couldn't afford to be pissing people off in such a small group of people.
Nowadays you cannot even gain an audience with the mayor, let alone the Prime Minister or President.
Voting is an attempt to address that need, but it's far too abstract and ineffective to be satisfying.
So people invent the personal god, a god who will listen to all your problems and try to sway the universe to benefit you. No matter that such a concept is ridiculous.
The audacity! Asking the Creator Of The Universe to influence the very outcome of history in your favor. Do you have any conception of how many humans are on this planet? How many stars are in this galaxy? This universe? Why are you so special? Why do you deserve special treatment?
30 000 children starve to death every single fucking day and you're crying to god about how awful your North American middle class life is?
Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't really identify with the nubby flesh covered organism staring back at me. All I see are bones sculpted with muscle and soft tissue. I can see where the muscle is anchored to bone. These creepy vacant eyes.
Thinking of pictures of people who lept from the World Trade Center. Just bags of fat and blood. Since then I've had a hard time thinking any human being is physically attractive, because we all are made up of the same bags of fat and blood. No one is pretty when they've had their face scraped off because they were stupid and wore a motorcycle helmet that didn't protect their chin.
Physical beauty is so tenuous. That's when I am sorta glad I'm not female. Men aren't expected to be beautiful, so its easier for men to age gracefully in our North American society with its twisted standards of beauty. That's why some people still find Sean Connary attractive and why most find Ian McKellen dignified. It's possible for women, but Dame Judy Dench is in the minority.
Last night I had a pretty bad headache. All I could picture was where the pain originated in a three-dimensional MRI-style representation of my head. I pictured a slightly more complex amoeba trying to deal with these constricted capillaries in what amounted to central nervous system.
And that's my biggest fear. Pain.
If you think about it it is downright sadistic how much pain a life form, especially a human being, can experience.
Think of all the ways a human can be tortured. Bamboo underneath fingernails. Hot needles underneath fingernails. Fingernails torn off. Paper cuts on eyeballs, etc. To say nothing of psychological torture. Sensory depravation, Chinese water torture, etc., etc., etc.
Even somewhat valid responses are exaggerated. I pulled a muscle in my chest once from having a cough for the better part of a year. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced. It felt like one of my ribs had punctured my lung. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to work with that?
Those are all faults in our design, in my view.
If I could genetically engineer the speices that'd be one of the first things I'd do: I'd make pain a voluntary reflex.
But yeah. Life to me is hedonism. I take joy in all the things that bring me pleasure without infringing on other people's freedom. Some things to excess sometimes, but we all have our vices. A junk food tax is probably a good idea.
I am one day closer to death and I feel fine. I have no regrets. If I die (or become a vegetable) donate my organs to save other people's lives (but not someone like my mom who is still smoking after needing a liver transplant), then donate the remains to science or something. I think it'd be cool to be a science room skeleton, or part of an ossuary like the one in Sedlec.
Suicide - Frankie Teardrop
4:35 a.m. - 2006-03-26
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