Renewed effort to post daily.
This journey. This life.
Far as I can tell, my consciousness in this form has the one chance. Even now, 12 months into consistent, weekly study into the rigid ways of my JW kinfolk, my lack of belief remains. I remain fairly certain that there is no God -- at least, not as perceived by religious types. Not to overstep into the metaphysical, but I also doubt whether we truly exist as individual entities, but rather as very convincing manifestations of cerebral processes. It is simply agreed upon that our corporeal selves are truth, and that the tubes of bone&meat we encounter are each other; separate and distinct.
Difficult to talk about this stuff without sounding cliche or unoriginal or too full of myself, but there it sits. Something about the JW view (and I guess the views of religions of the book in general) seems hubristical. This presumption that our self is unique from the zero point, and will remain so in some after life. It seems more likely that just like stories, lives are largely analogous. Aside from small details (where, admittedly, the devils often live, and to truly unique results) there are different archetypes or paths or skills trees that people are defined by, and aside from those devilish details, a personal story-arc is fairly unoriginal and predictable. Not to discount these lives! Great comfort, love, family, personal struggle and growth, challenges and successes and the like can be present in the predictable. But a truly unique existence? This is a very rare thing, methinks.
From whence we come, so shall we return. Not sure of the origin of this phrase. Ironically, chances are good that it comes from that very book. Or Book if you prefer. The idea, however seems more likely to me than the hubris-laden presumption of individuality. I picture a huge cloud, made of Brownian swirls of... what... souls? ideas? life-forces? Not even necessarily a physical thing, but particularly opposite of that. What comes out of the cloud is somewhat affected by what had gone in (thus allowing for notions of karma and sin and such) but the only commonality between that which exits and that which enters is the cloud itself. The cycle is birth life death birth and that which breaks that cycle is nirvana. Maybe because I know it best, have studied it longest, but it just feels right to me -- this philosophy is like an amorphous shroud that can conform and distort its details to fit into over and around other beliefs. Like the video of the octopus changing its color and texture so as to be indistinguishable from the nearby coral, Buddhism is flexible yet distinct; general yet specific; speaks and feels to many things, but is truly about one thing: no thing. mu
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