Hallelujah
Eli: I remember as a kid, I was ... I dunno, maybe seven or eight ... my grandfather died and my parents took me to the funeral. Watching his casket getting lowered into the ground, it ... it was the first time that I realized I was gonna die one day. I mean, I knew people died. I'm talking about the idea that my consciousness was gonna end. I wasn't gonna see what happened to the world. It was such an empty, dark feeling, like I was falling down a pitch-black hole. It was ... it scared the crap out of me.
Rush: I take it you don't believe in the afterlife.
Eli: That fear was almost too much to handle. I guess maybe I thought I'd just get used to it.
Rush: But you don't.
Eli: No. No. It scared me just as much every time.
Rush: Most people realize their own mortality at some stage of the game, Eli. It's not a particularly unique experience.
Eli: I know.
Rush: The question is, did it change you? Did it inspire you to make something of this short existence that we have?
Eli: Well, I'm here, aren't I?
When I was like seven I remember crossing the bridge over the Wisconsin River driving to or from church having the realization that I exist in this reality. That my consciousness was real, it felt almost out of body, like I was watching myself riding in the car. Then there was a moment like I fell back into my body, it was like a shock. A splash of cold water in the face almost. I had the same feeling when I walked into the room and seeing my grandma’s dead body in the casket. It was more of a hammer in the face and mind.
The panic and fear didn’t come till later. It ebbs and flows, and I’ve talked about it before. Why I can’t get used to it annoys me. Either there is nothing, and it won’t matter because I won’t be able to care, or I just keep living this life over and over, or I’m punished for eternity for not loving Jesus, or I get to go to happy land forever.
None of them sound great. Even eternal happiness seems strangely boring. The ups and downs of life make the ups that much better. If the coin always comes up heads what the fun in flipping it. Maybe the real end is better, not really… still terrifying and depressing, all those kids who die because of their horrible parents, all those people who suffer every day while I philosophize about life and get stomach aches from eating too much.
Some levity
Rush: I take it you don't believe in the afterlife.
Eli: That fear was almost too much to handle. I guess maybe I thought I'd just get used to it.
Rush: But you don't.
Eli: No. No. It scared me just as much every time.
Rush: Most people realize their own mortality at some stage of the game, Eli. It's not a particularly unique experience.
Eli: I know.
Rush: The question is, did it change you? Did it inspire you to make something of this short existence that we have?
Eli: Well, I'm here, aren't I?
When I was like seven I remember crossing the bridge over the Wisconsin River driving to or from church having the realization that I exist in this reality. That my consciousness was real, it felt almost out of body, like I was watching myself riding in the car. Then there was a moment like I fell back into my body, it was like a shock. A splash of cold water in the face almost. I had the same feeling when I walked into the room and seeing my grandma’s dead body in the casket. It was more of a hammer in the face and mind.
The panic and fear didn’t come till later. It ebbs and flows, and I’ve talked about it before. Why I can’t get used to it annoys me. Either there is nothing, and it won’t matter because I won’t be able to care, or I just keep living this life over and over, or I’m punished for eternity for not loving Jesus, or I get to go to happy land forever.
None of them sound great. Even eternal happiness seems strangely boring. The ups and downs of life make the ups that much better. If the coin always comes up heads what the fun in flipping it. Maybe the real end is better, not really… still terrifying and depressing, all those kids who die because of their horrible parents, all those people who suffer every day while I philosophize about life and get stomach aches from eating too much.
Some levity
posted by lawryde at
12:48 PM
1 Comments:
This is probably where you and I are similar...
I never came to reality that I was going to die when I was young but I felt "out of body" a lot when I was a kid. I felt that my eyes were a TV camera and I expected someday I was going to walk into a closet and it would be a backstage entry into the studio. (Then the Truman Show came out)
Then reality set in when I realized this was it. I guess I always felt that the scene could magically change and there was another place just watching or the cast and characters around me that left my life were merely just actors that didn't make it or something.
I saw my grandmother die... Well, at least I think I did. I remember she was in the hospital and for some reason, my brother and I were the ones going there every night. She was there for a few months. And well, it was my night. I remember driving there having visions she was failing and that I would walk in there and she would be dead. And I remember riding the elevator up to the room... and then arguing with the doctor about why they couldn't do anything to save her. The space between that always has bothered me. I was 26 at the time and wow, that was nearly 10 years ago, Feburary of 2000
At that point in my life, that year I realized, this was all it and that I was doomed to make the best of it. But in my grandmother's sense, she almost got to see everything she wanted and had bought a red dress for my wedding that was a month later.
Then after marriage, I still felt, this was all I could have so make the best of it. And I did... until it drove me crazy. Crazy enough that I feel it aged me 20 years the past 5 or at least so it seemed. If you came to me 5 years ago when I started my blog and said:
"Hey guess what, that thing with your wife is not gonna work out, even after you had your first child which hasn't been thought of yet and you will go back to your past and find what is right for you... and then have your second child..."
Mind boggling... and there is more to come that I never thought about 5 years ago. Quitting and destroying what you had to grab some sanity and innocence back for the most part is liberating, terrifying and peaceful all at the same time.
Still a rocky road... but I am getting through.
By
Steve, at 10:26 PM, November 18, 2009
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