Originally posted by bbarr
If I knew eternal life awaited my death in this world, I would be overcome with curiosity concerning the odd fact of life in this world. Why would the Creator bother to put us here at all, given that our tenure here is infinitesimally brief in comparison with our eventual eternal life? I guess I would spend my time trying to answer this question. So, I suppose I would continue with philosophy.
Nice response.
The “odd fact of life in this world” seems compelling enough to me to continue, pretty much as I have been: growing, learning, hopefully deepening—even with those frustrating falling-backs. I wonder what’s going to happen next?!
There is pain, yes, and suffering as well. If I live long enough, I am likely to see even more loved ones suffer, die. I am very serene when it comes to contemplating my own death—even at the next keystroke. And yet I am sometimes terribly torn apart when some others die. Some of that is likely my own ego-loss; but some of it is not. Had Unamuno written his
The Tragic Sense of Life (a very honest book, at least, from a Christian existentialist) from the point of view of the death of
others, I might like him more.
Also, there is simply the fact that, by remaining, I might have the opportunity to be at least a minimal comforting presence to someone going through suffering. I will not attempt to talk in any abstract terms about those very concrete situations. I am not a very good or useful “bodhisattva”, but at least I’ll hang around for those situations where I might be the only choice present.
So, I’ll just remain—present. If that entails some pain and suffering that I could otherwise avoid, so be it. If it increases the chances (which some already consider to be pretty good) that I’ll end up in hell (which is not what Epi has asked us to consider, I realize), I’ll hang around anyway.