Look But Don't Touch

I realise I have mentioned death quite a bit on this blog, I don't believe that is indicative of my mental state, just the course of the conversation that has unfolded with the topics I have covered.  There is a fascination we have as human beings with death.  Most people don't like to think about dying, the process, but there remains to be a fascination if not an obsession with what happens after.

There are various theories, and nobody can really know what happens because nobody has ever come back to tell us what happens.  Death isn't something we can reverse, and whilst many people have been clinically dead and then resuscitated, I don't consider their experiences as being a representation of what would happen if it were final, as the fact they were able to be revived, to me, means they did not experience the finality of death.

Biology and Physiology aside, those two elements can be explained in quite a bit of detail.  The fascination surrounds the spiritual side of death.  We contemplate the idea of ghosts, and presences, often as a way of comforting ourselves and enabling a belief that the ones we have lost aren't truly gone.  The idea however that you would be able to watch the world continue to go by after you have passed away simultaneously excites and horrifies me.  It excites me insofar as it would allow me to continue to witness the world in a way that would mean I wouldn't miss the moments that I would actually like to live to see out of curiosity.  It also horrifies me because it would be a point of frustration and consternation. 

If you want to get an idea of what it would feel like to die and continue to watch the world, you can step back from social media, stop interacting with it, and view it in a "read-only" mode, where you can read, but can't reply, like, retweet, favourite, etc.  To place it behind a metaphorical glass wall where you can see but you can't touch.  You begin to see that other people live their lives just fine without you.  There would be a few who would miss you, of that you can be sure.  Yet seeing life continue is both comforting and depressing.  We realise in that moment that we are all part of life but life is only part of us for a short time.  Life never dies, but we do.

You can take experiences in life, things that we can do, and you can find a way to live vicariously.  To watch others do it, through YouTube or even in real life by stepping back and watching the world.  When you do this, the motivation and the desire to be able to try for ourselves grows.  We can convince ourselves that we could never have the opportunity to do those things and would never be so lucky, but there is always a glimmer of hope even if it is extremely dim in the back of our minds that one day it could.  To live without even that hope would be the hardest thing to endure.  Really the idea of being able to watch the world after we pass, I believe would probably be a torment.  You already know from life how frustrating it can be to see people who have the opportunity to do things you can not, and how they choose not to, or take that opportunity for granted and waste it.  Like living on a budget where you count every penny and seeing those so wealthy that they can place bets with wagers in the thousands fully prepared and able to lose it all with no negative ramifications for them whatsoever.