This big blue waterlogged rock of ours keeps spinning around
the sun.
I guess this means that time just keeps moving forward, one
second after the previous one. Baby steps along.
It did so before we got here. It will continue to do so
after we leave.
I find time so fascinating. It is the only man made invention that was here before we got here and will continue long after we are gone to no longer measure it. Even long after our water logged rock and our blazing sun. Even after the Milky Way galaxy that our sun orbits is gone.
It hurts my brain to think about this.
Time that I am speaking of is the measurement of consecutive moments and knowing where we are in that measurement.
Others – much smarter than I – talk about it as an entity – relationship with and a dependency on gravity. The stronger the density of gravity – the quicker time passes – supposedly proven by using atomic clocks to compare time between the earth’s highest peaks and at sea level, several nanoseconds of difference between the two.
Is that really proof, or a flaw in the mechanics of an atomic clock?
I think of this as people I know and love pass away. It’s part of that conceptual question of “what happens when we die?”
Do we continue to exist? Or is it the same thing as turning off and unplugging the living room lamp?
Well, I certainly am no Einstein.
But all things of nature are so perfectly designed. Perfectly balanced. Perfectly fit to fulfill a role. Leaves on trees stretch out to receive the sun, or collect the rain. Seeds from those trees dispersed by wind or animal or both to extend be reborn after the parent tree dies, and rots away, becoming the nutrients needed for the next generation of all things around it.
So why would our being – our soul – be any different?
We have no math to prove it. No scientific experiment to shed even a hope. We do have legends, and antidotal accounts that demand it is true. Our religions tell us it is true. But we have nothing scientific to back it up.
Our existence on this planet, our cognitive awareness that we are here and our interaction with the world and the thoughts – thoughts is the key word – our perception of what we see and smell and taste and feel, combined with our emotional responses – that’s what makes us … us.
It’s brilliant. So if everything else produced by nature is regenerated again – lakes to gas to clouds to rain to water as food to lakes again as an example why would we just assume that the lights go off when we die?
That seems too easy an answer. But scientifically it is the only conclusion we can make so far.
We have no data to support anything else.
I used to have a boss named Bob. Bob would never say that we didn’t know anything or couldn’t do anything without adding the word “yet” to the end of the sentence. It was always a challenge to learn. The subtle instruction was “go figure it out”.
I loved working for Bob.
And I don’t believe the lights go off at the end. Maybe our consciousness doesn’t continue in a manner that remembers the existences before – maybe it all gets rewired – re-used somehow. Maybe we do get planted elsewhere. Around and around again and again – waiting for the right opportunity to develop to exist.
Just like our big rock spinning around the sun, once molten lava, then drenched with water, then frozen, then thawed, then green with life and then the next thing – whatever it may be. And whatever it may be again after that. And after that again.
We just really don’t know … yet.
And before I close this – please do not pummel me with comments about heaven or hell or reincarnation. Those are ideas, perhaps even theories. And their truth to you is directly related to the amount of faith you have in those beliefs.
I am not here to debate or even question your faith. Honest.
I’m just reiterating that as a collective, we don’t know …
Yet.
But when we pass away, then will we know?
I sure hope so.
