[Rant] Redefining Life & Death, Good, Bad, Future, Legacy and Success.

With the drastic change in my life recently - and it is a drastic change, though I didn't think it would be - came a lot of reassessment. Older people talk to you, dispensing advice like well articulated Pez dispensers, and you're contained in your thoughts in between. Does it take the death of a parent to start thinking about some things? Maybe it does, maybe it's what I needed. But all along, certain words keep popping out of the heads of people around.

Life. Death. Good. Bad. Future. Legacy. Success. And all of these words have different meanings within different contexts - and the context of many of these things have changed in their own ways.

Life and Death

To me, Life and Death are the same in an academic way - but in a human way, a practical way, there is a difference that only we living can write about. In fact, it's been written about so much that it's hard not to walk down the street and have someone try to hand you something - in fact, some Jehovah's Witnesses wielding Awake! magazines accosted me a few days ago and I told them, "No thanks, I'm trying to quit."

Why did they look confused? Because, perhaps, nobody has been that blunt about it to them, and in such a polite manner. I write and share what I believe here on this website; I don't go walking around trying to dispense dead trees with my beliefs on them. I'm pretty saturated with everyone else's beliefs, it runs out of my pores like a temporally misplaced primordial ooze. I don't need to hear a familiar worldview again, and I certainly don't need more pieces of paper to line my cage on this planet with.

I believe in the imaginary line that Darwinists and Creationists don't want to admit to. That there was, in fact, a primordial ooze - that life did start off much more simply, and that perhaps if the Bible is as accurate as any denomination claims it's version is, that maybe what Christians call God is still actually in the process of 'creating us in His image'. Or maybe he started, and fiddled around a bit. No Darwinist can explain the special magic that started life on this planet despite enormous odds. The faith based theories have some merit here, but the probability of life starting - though staggering to consider - is actually a '1', because we are here. It only had to happen once, and the universe had nothing better to do than to eventually fold in on itself and vomit life. Disagree? Fine with me. You don't have to believe this. It's what I believe. But does that mean I don't believe in 'God'?

Well, there's another slippery slope. Define 'God', and do so without reading someone else's words. To me, the equivalent of 'God' would be the entire cosmos - what we know and what we don't know about - doing what it does. Therefore all parts make the whole. A Creationist could argue me with a 'who made the cosmos?' question, but that's a Darwinist question wielded by a Creationist and therefore is... funny. The Cosmos consists of things we don't know about, and our worldview is defined - culturally - by a pesky thing called time which is, in fact, a part of the Cosmos in my world view. So it comes full circle, and will likely do so again.

Yeah, it may seem like lunacy to some of you, but at least I'm not slicing up trees to chase the descendants of monkeys with - or worse, harassing God's children. Maybe they don't intend to, but I've found that people who do the most bad do so in the name of good. I've been down that path myself a few times, myself. I've learned from my mistakes, and continue to do so. I wish other people would do themselves the same service, and ultimately do the globe a large favor.

Here's the question: At what point does tolerance start? In my eyes, tolerance doesn't include telling everyone else that their beliefs are wrong, to intrude on their day to tell them so. And also, if they annoy people such that the message is not related - guess what? The net effect is the same, only the people who cause the message to not be passed along are responsible. Is that a sin?

Anyways. Life. Death.

Death is a funny thing. It's the 'end of life', the 'opposite of life', and so many other things. It's a strange word, and the word is uttered with a finality in some religions and with a continuance in others. But as far as we living are concerned - the dead are no longer among the living. It's questionable to me at times that some of the living are not among the dead, but for argument's sake, the living are not dead. So what's the point in what one believes after death? Nobody really knows, but people have their own beliefs. Is it so hard to leave people to their beliefs?

Personally, I subscribe to the perspective of conservation of energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. When someone can demonstrate to me that a 'soul' is not made up of energy, then maybe I'll go with a theory that allows for a Boolean Heaven and Hell. It seems odd that with an increasing population worldwide, there would be more energy being imported into the world from nowhere, and disappearing into two distinct areas. No, I'll go with the version of the Buddhist Heaven and Hell, where I view Earth and the existence we suffer as Hell. Heaven is getting out of the loop and joining a larger energy pattern, in my eyes.

Of course, as I continue considering this, it may change. What's funny here, though, is that if you read all the major religious texts and discuss it with openminded people of different religion, all the evidence sort of points to the same thing. Toss in the often neglected factor of time in relation to mass and energy, and it really does make sense (QED). The sad truth is that when it comes to living, I'm getting used to the concept - and there is no greater or lesser expert on death around.

If you're happy with Heaven and Hell, though, run with it. The focus of religion shouldn't be where you go, the focus should be what you have to do to get there.

A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there. -- Jon Postel

Religion is supposed to be the route, isn't it? Are people who bug others on their route lost? It bears some scrutiny, doesn't it?

Now, with my father - I don't view him as I last saw him. That wasn't him. That was the last part of him I saw. All of him that I know is not limited to that snapshot. It's beyond that. It involves him for the entire period that I knew him - this September would have made 34 years. But those 34 years, when I think about them, don't take 34 years to consider. The sphere of my father hasn't been 'flattened', it has been decreased in size to the point where he's easier to carry around and also more intense than he was in life. The problem with time on this is that it would take me about 34 years to relate what I know to anyone else. Yet all of my father which I knew is with me now, neatly packaged and a firm base to build upon - and in some places, to edit.

It's when we deny editing that we get into trouble. We all do it. And by editing, the thing we carry is no longer whole. And maybe we aren't either.

Good and Bad

George Boole's legacy continues. Many see things as either 'good' or 'bad' based on the personal context that they apply. What may be good for me may be bad for you. Compromise, the little thing in between, is seen as 'grey' by many - and grey is typically seen as a color that doesn't exist.

Compromise, however, makes complete sense within the realm of Fuzzy Logic. In it, we can apply weights to 'good' and 'bad', and when dealing with multiple parties, we can find the most effective balance of 'good' and 'bad' within the participating group or even groups. It's also a good way for finding the core truth that a group would agree to.

But Boolean logic is simpler. Look how idiots allow their perceptions to be limited to the machines that they use - the logic of a light switch guides most discussion. Alan Turing talked about a Turing Test for machines. Perhaps the Turing Test should be adapted such that we can find the first humans that best mimic light switches. I know a few.

Future

Ahh, the future. Possibilities. Probabilities. Patras, or Horoscopes. Perhaps even considerations of histories. But what is the future? What is it that makes the future good or bad? See above on how to deal with 'good' and 'bad'. It's all subjective because we're human, and no matter how objective we claim to be our answers are always subjective.

We cannot harness the future - for that matter, one cannot harness the past. The only thing one can do is harness the present, and make the best choices available at any given time with the information on hand.

The future exists where the present decisions one makes will take you. That's all. So you can play with your tea leaves all you want - no matter what you do, you still have to make the decisions that will lead to the future. Instead of worrying about planning one's life according to horoscopes and other obscure things, maybe one should master the present and use the time of the present to effectively get information that will help with the making of decisions.

But if you're happy with rolling the dice and painting by the subsequent numbers, go for it.

Legacy

A legacy is what is left behind. For example, my father has left me behind a legacy. In the form of material, there is the estate. For managing what is left, there is another legacy. Legacy doesn't define what you do, it doesn't define how you do it, and it doesn't define who you are. There are active choices that have to be made. Again:

A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there. -- Jon Postel

A legacy, or legacies, only define what we have. It doesn't indicate what we seek. It doesn't say where what we seek is. It doesn't how to get where what we seek resides. It's just a legacy. No more, no less.

Another aspect, however, is one that we choose to leave behind. My father, for the most part, chose the legacy he would leave as far as material - and he also had options on the legacy he chose to leave outside of the material realm. For better or worse, the latter were simply the best that he could think of at the time with the information he had.

My legacy? That remains to be seen. But that's part of...

Success

A lot of people have been discussing my future with me - some that I asked, others that I got without asking. Some want to see me settle down, marry and have children - and there is a part of me that wouldn't mind that at all. There is a certain allure to staying in one place and 'living happily ever after'. But is that in my future? Who can say. Is it something I want, is it something I would plan for? Maybe, maybe not. Honestly, the requirements I would have for such things are pretty difficult for most, and I would be disappointed if the other person who got involved didn't have similar requirements. I'm not normal, and for that I have numerous references though one is no longer around.

What is the future for me? I think, for now, it is using as much good as possible with the legacy left me in the preparation of leaving my own legacy - which is a continuance of life upon my death. In fact - that would be success.

The trick is doing that through the mumble of the crowds. Those that carry pieces of my father with them, as well as pieces of myself, will have the most weight in decisions on good and bad - but ultimately, I have the most pieces of me. ;-)