17.5.05

What Might Be Worse Than Hell...

I was sitting on one of the benches in the ground floor of the UST main building in front of the bulletin boards waiting for my friends to come out of the bathroom when I noticed this poster in one of the bulletin boards. It said World Youth Day 2005 near the top a huge picture of John Paul II in the middle and at the bottom of the poster was a strip of masking tape that had the words "registration closed" written on it in blue ink. I really didn't think much of it at first. I figured maybe it was the poster for this year's World Youth Day and that they just haven't taken it down yet. And then I noticed the date on it. It said August. I suddenly felt sad. People were actually making plans to join JPII for this year’s world youth day and now he's gone.

I am not a devout catholic. I was baptized catholic and that's about it. I don't go to mass at all and I haven't even been confirmed nor do I intend on receiving that sacrament any time soon. Sorry. I just don't get organized religion. It's just too complicated. But even though I'm not one of his "faithful" followers I can't help but feel sad that he's not around anymore. Let's face it whether or not you believe in what the church teaches, you gotta admit that this was one heck of a guy. If anyone manages to accomplish the equivalent of even .05% of what he has done; it would be worth naming a national highway in this person's honor.

I remember somebody saying something interesting about the pope dying: "Now he'll know if everything he believed in is REAL."

This reminded of a conversation that I had with my friend Sheila back in high school. We were at Gate 7 waiting for our ride home and for some reason that I don't exactly remember we started talking about death and dying and what's the scariest thing about it. We both agreed that either eternal life or reincarnation would be cool but what if neither was true? What if we all just end up as worm food?

Ok. I know that I'm not supposed to obsess about this. There's no use being scared about something that you cannot do anything about. We are all going to go someday. I hardly ever think of how I'll eventually go (when I DO think about how I'll go, I figure it'd be lung cancer since I now smoke almost a pack a day, I think. Anyway, whoever invented the parenthesis was a damn genius because it allows me to put that in and even though it has nothing to do with the subject of the blog or wait a sec... shouldn't I be using a dash instead of a parenthesis... darn.... should've paid more attention during English writing class... these damn punctuation marks!!!) but I do think about what will happen after I die. Getting into Heaven would be great and going back for another try would be even better. Hell would be very painful but that's not even the worst that could happen. To me, the most dreaded thing that could happen is "nothing". It's like not existing. The only thing that I can think of that can best describe this is that it’s like passing out after drinking too much except that you do not get to dream while you're unconscious. Everything is an empty void and you don't even get to be aware that everything is an empty void because your consciousness doesn't exist anymore. A lot of people will say that as long as you were able to do something that is able to affect someone else's life in a positive way that nonexistence shouldn't be a big deal because you at least did something significant during your time here. Sure. Being remembered for affecting some positive change no matter how small would be great but here is the thing: The World and what happens to it is my favorite soap opera and I'd really love to know how all of this plays out.

It's like that thing about us earthlings eventually moving to mars. They say that in a hundred or so years that we might actually be ready to live in mars. Knowing that the average lifespan of human being nowadays is 82 years then, statistically speaking at least, it is highly unlikely that I will be alive when that day arrives. And if all awareness disappears when we die then I wouldn't even be able to witness it from afar. Wouldn't that just absolutely suck? Or maybe I just have way too much time on my hands... Aaaargh...

posted by jeanne @ 12:12

0 Comments:

> Post a Comment

<< Home