Where Do Bad Folks Go When They Die?…

I don’t plan to die (at least if I can help it).  Don’t get me wrong – I know that odds are strongly in favor of me eventually kicking the bucket.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  Plus I think science may someday have my back on this one.  This may seem an odd assertion and indeed an odd topic, but it is an issue that came up recently in a conversation of hypotheticals that apparently left my wife wondering at my sanity.

So there was this quiz.  And in this quiz, one of the questions was if you had the choice, how would you die and why.  Giving the matter some thought, I decided that if all other things being equal – my death being unavoidable but having complete control over how it would happen – it might be interesting to indulge my own sense of curiosity in the process.  Sure there are lots of quick and painless ways to die and truly I would be happiest not having to suffer when my time comes, but I felt to choose something so mundane was a disservice to the question at hand.  Thus, I answered that I’d prefer to be beheaded so that I could personally find an answer to the mystery of how long one could remain conscious and cognizant after such an event.  Okay, I’ll admit that it sounds pretty crazy.  But I’m a curious person – I am interested in the mysteries of the universe.

Anyway, death is a strange and touchy subject.  Everyone has their own ideas about what death means and when death is appropriate.  Personally I’ve decided that I’m not a fan of the death penalty but I am a fan of euthanasia.  I figure that if an upstanding citizen is suffering and death is inevitable yet slightly out of reach, a little help is not too much to ask.  But killing a serial rapist is not justice – the punishment doesn’t nearly fit the crime (though some time in the right prisons on the wrong rung of that social ladder might be fitting punishment).  Is that too “an eye for an eye”?  Maybe.

Perhaps it is my beliefs that have me such at odds with common views of death (taking heaven and hell out of the picture certainly can lead to that).  In general I think that we place too much importance on death (or more pointedly on life) – whether our lives have a deeper meaning or not, they are gifts to be cherished or squandered as we each choose.  None of us will every truly get it perfectly right.  I say live and let live or die, make the most of the time we have, and don’t waste our time worrying so much about whose unprovable ideas are most right.  We will all get proven right or wrong in the end … well except me – I’m not planning to die.  There is too much of the world to experience to fit it in a century or less.

Blurbsday: Balance

Intro:  Thursdays I will try to write something brief – I call it Blurbsday (that’s all I’ll say about that).

Life is about balance.  Imagine life as a see-saw:  one end is the past, one end is the future, the middle is the present.  If you sit at either end, you won’t get anywhere without the help of outside forces.  If you sit in the middle, you can find balance – but only if you remain mindful of the ends of the board.  One end or the other is bound to sway you.  You need to learn to sway with it to keep things in balance.  And no matter how hard you try, we all run out of board – make the most of your time on it.

Mid-season Status Report

Ok, I guess it isn’t really the middle of the television season, per se.  But really with how things seem to run these days, how could one truly pin down a mid-point?  Some shows started their season as early as September while others started in January – still others seem to be coming back in March.  So who knows.  The bottom line is that I feel like reviewing the shows that I watch in summary.  So here I go: Read more “Mid-season Status Report”