When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

Last night, Emma was sleeping in my bed due to Yayoi being out. All of the sudden, she turned to me and said "I'm said, because when I get old, you'll get old and die. Then I won't have a parent".

It's hard to know how to comfort a child when they realize that you won't be with them forever. I could feed them some sort of standard Christian response, such as "we'll be together in heaven". But I don't believe that, and I doubt that Emma would either. It is a well intentioned, but tremendously unsatisfactory answer.

I could say "we'll have many good years together". But that doesn't address the essence of the qustion/obervation: That our years will, eventually run out.

When Pandora opened the jar, many evils/pain/suffering escaped out into the world. She replaced the top just in time to prevent the last item from escaping: the knowledge of how we will die. This is, indeed a tremendous evil and suffering. I believe, if people knew this, it would be truly sad and depressing, and would not allow us to enjoy the precious time we do have on this earth.

When looking at retirement calculators, the fundamental question is: When will we die? Obviously, if we knew this answer, it would be a simple matter to know how much money one will need in retirement, and subsequently, how to draw that money down. Draw it down too quickly, and you'll outlive your nest egg, and be desolate in your old age. Draw it down too slowly, and you'll have unnecessarily perhaps, sacrificed quality of life/experiences that you could have safely partaken. Of course, the comfort is that the nest egg will be left to your heirs. But is this in and of itself a satisfactory and comforting thought? Or is it far more desirable to be around our loved ones, and see them enjoy the inheritance, and see how it would change their lives? To pursue their passions without worrying about how to make a livelihood? To make life decisions without the constraints of the perhaps mundane but necessary questions that drive most of our life decisions?

Dogs are very loving and they love you with a love that is purer than any that we will ever experience. They don't hold grudges, for not taking them to the dog park yesterday when the sun was shining. They don't nurse ill will for forgetting to feed them or cutting short their walk. They love you more than they love anything in this earth. And they enjoy each moment and day to the fullest.

They do this because they are not aware of their own impending death. They are blissfully not aware that they may experience deteriorating health as they get older. Or that their days enjoying life with their beloved owners will one day come to a final and non-negotiable end. They are happy and in the moment because they live without this knowledge.

What if we could also live this way? How would we do that? By being at peace with one's own death? By accepting that our days with our beloved family and friends will one day come to a terminal end, and being 100% OK with that?

Vampires

Is it a blessing or a curse to live forever? To die is to end relationships. With spouses, friends, children, parents. This is sad. It's not sad for the person who is dying, because they will not experience the loss, except as a feeling of anticipation. But it is undeniably sad for those that are left behind.

But if you could live forever, would that be the answer? I think no, unless everyone lives forever along with you. If you were the only one living forever, it would seem like more of a curse than a blessing. You will continuouly repeatedly experience loss, as those around you live a lifetime and die, leaving you with a void in your life.

Then, what is the answer? To live oblivious that our relationship will come to an end? This is easier when you are young. Children, or teenagers, or even young adults live blissfully unaware of the passage of time, or the finiteness of our existence. But as we inevitably get older, and our bodies slow down and fail, giving us a unavoidable reminder that our bodies have an expiration date.

What about the concept of a soul? That will live on forever? It is cold comfort for me to say that we will live on forever in some form of existence that is so radically different from our current one that it is impossible to fathom or imagine. To be told that our existence will continue in some shape or form is cold comfort. How can we be happy about or even begin to understand such a radically different way to exist?

So what is the answer? Some sort of vague notion that we'll continue an existence akin to our current one, but in "heaven"? This is so problematic that it is hard to even begin to unpack the many ways it is unsatisfactory.

I think of art as maybe an answer. It gives us soothes our minds for a fleeting moment. It takes us away from the heavy burden of a person who is aware of our impending terminal end, and gives us pleasure. This can be art as in visual art, or more often that not, music or performance art.

Do drug users manage to experience the same escape, through the injection of chemicals in their body? Perhaps, but it seems contradictory at best since the very act of consuming drugs quickly destroys all good things about their life, and shortly thereafter, brings about an ignoble end.

With many millenia of human existence, there is more beauty and art that mankind has produced at this point than can be consumed in a life time. Just as in the age of Netflix and other internet streaming, there are far more content than can be consumed by a person. It is all we can do to simply enjoy and digest the beauty that the people that have lived before us have produced. Bethoven. The great works of architecture. The commulative, layered beauty of the architecture and culture of ancient cities. Works of great literature. Dostoevsky. This all gives us solace and comfort in an otherwise unbearably depressing mortal existence.