The Afterlife

Before I start writing I would like to let my viewers know that I will be talking about some controversial stuff that some may not want to hear. So if you are easily offended or do not want to think about this topic of life after death, please do not read…

Ever since a young age I have been a deep thinker, not by choice, but I am. With the deep thinking I, at about eight or nine started to wonder what was to come with death, essentially the afterlife. As I grew I came upon more and more theories that would keep me up for hours at night when trying to sleep.

                

           I just found it unsettling of how I cannot know what awaits me, but that is life’s biggest secret.

                

           Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe in God and I do go to church often. But there is always room for speculation in my head. “What if the other religion is right?” I would often find myself asking, but after a while I just learned to not think about it for the better of myself. What I have found is that there are six basic theories of what happens to you in the afterlife.

Materialism:  This is essentially the belief that when you die that is it; there is no afterlife, just black. When looking at this it is pretty easy to take in knowing that Hubble has found over 100 billion galaxies and is saying that they will be able to find 100 billion more as telescope technology increases. This is the typical belief of atheist people. When looking at how big space is and it is forever growing it is easy to say that we as one human being does not matter and with that we have no afterlife.

Paganism: Paganism is the belief that after you die you come back as a “lighter” form of yourself, such as a ghost. With movies and TV today the idea of ghosts is probably more common than it was before. There are in some cases, where we have heard of the ghosts that live in certain areas. There is also a rumor that I have heard of that says that when you see your pet looking around rapidly that is them seeing the ghosts that we as humans cannot see. I believe in ghosts, but not that we all come back as them.

Reincarnation: The idea that the same soul that you have now will come back as another form. It is you but it is not you. I have often pondered this belief, the reason why is that the Earth has been around for millions of years maybe even billions and since the creation of man there has been even more people than that. It is easy in my head to say that the same souls that were here from the beginning are here with us today, and that is why we all have our own styles and ways of living because we are in fact from different time periods.

Another reason that I believe reincarnation to an extent is that I look at my two dogs, they are so happy. I think to myself what did they do to deserve to be a dog while I am a human. This may seem odd but it is a just thought.

Pantheism: similar to reincarnation but you are put in a body based off of your karma in your past life. So back to what I was saying earlier, for this belief maybe my dogs were actually bad people in their past life’s making them dogs now, or maybe it could be even reversed of that. That because they were good they get the easy life of a dog and I am being punished as a human. With Pantheism there is a level where you realize what you have done wrong and that is where you find your peace with yourself by working up levels of lives.

Immortality: the belief that the actual soul survives, not the body. Whether it is through stages such as reincarnation or not, people often think of this as Christianity. I do believe in this a little bit, only because I feel like it is unfair to judge a person off of their one life experiences. They could be placed in bad situations, which everybody does, but some people have much tougher lives than others. How they fulfill with their lives decides if they need another life essentially to reach their eternal destiny of heaven or hell.

Resurrection: this is known as the new Christian belief. The belief that at death, your soul stands alone and enters either heaven or hell where it will stay for eternity.

As I told you earlier I am a Christian, that doesn’t mean I do not believe in these other possibilities as well. I find myself asking if I am “disobeying” my religion in a way by thinking as I do, but I feel that there will be people to think the same as I do all over. You could even say that through the Christian belief that this is a way of “the devil” trying to stray me away from the belief of Jesus, but it is not that, it is that I am open to knowing all the options.

                

           Another topic I would like to bring up is the idea of eternity. I am unsettled by this idea of a never ending, at I young age I feared death as I do still now. I would tell my parents that I was scared to die and that I wanted to live forever. Now older I find that maybe it is not the death that I am scared of because every person, whoever you are, sadly has to die one day. The thing that I do find to discomfort me is the idea that we do not get an ending, eternity is what it is. As well as none of us know what awaits us at the end, and that is truly scary.

The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

                I finally rolled into my bed; it was about one or so. I am able to go to sleep pretty easily, but throughout the night I find myself waking up with what is to come the next day on my mind.

              

            You may be asking yourself what I am talking about that is coming up. Is it Christmas? No. Is it my Birthday? No. The thing that I cannot sleep over is March Madness.

Now yes, it may seem a little silly to lose sleep over a college basketball tournament, but ever since I was in the seventh grade I have loved college basketball and all that is to come with it. For those of you who don’t keep up with college basketball, March Madness is a 64 team single elimination tournament. You can compare it to the state playoffs for high school just larger. It is action packed along with emotion, hence the name March Madness.

                

             The reason I bring this up is I want to talk about how each and every one of us are different in our own ways. As humans we tend to like and get excited about different things; whether it is food, music, or anything else. For example everybody seems to like Dr. Pepper, where as I cannot stand it. 

                

            People will always like different things than other people. That is how it has always been and always will be. What tastes good or what music sounds good in our ears is not chosen by us. We are not robotic, and the preferences in options is what makes each of us, us.

                

             When I couldn’t sleep I felt as If my mind was overloading itself to where I could not sleep for more than an hour at a time the closer I got to waking up. Until I finally just said screw it and got myself up to watch the first of many games for that day.

                 

             I don’t know why my body wouldn’t let me sleep, but I can remember doing the same thing as a child when it was Christmas the next day. It is odd because now that I am older I do not do this for Christmas but I do over March Madness.

              

            We all get excited over different things whether it is sports, holidays, coming up events or parties, a concert, maybe even a vacation. Whatever it is that gets you excited is part of what makes up you. I would love to hear in the comments things that make each of you excited, or maybe even a time in your life that you were excited for, that kept you from being able to sleep. Thank you for reading. 

One More Night

With my birthday being this last Friday and me turning eighteen, I have yet hit another mark on my path towards graduation and my life changing, hopefully, for the better. As I move ahead on my journey I will hit more marks and the marks will not stop there. After graduation is when it gets to the real stuff; moving out, a new roommate, paying rent if you have to pay rent, getting a job, and all the good stuff that comes with the real world.

One of the hardest things that I will probably face is not seeing the same people I have been used to seeing from anywhere to four to twelve of the last years of my life. I do believe that the people I am cool with I will keep in contact with, maybe not as much but that will be fine. But my real close friends: the Steel V’s, the Fugly Boys, the Slydawgs. I can almost guarantee that we will be as close as we are now.

I write this being that twelve hours ago or so I was just hanging out around a campfire, laughing and just having a good time with some of my closest friends. They said that it was a campout for my birthday, but I told them it should be a campout for everybody, not just me.

Now when I say it’s a campout, it kind of is. We are still doing all the common things that you do when you go camping except for we do it at the “dunes” instead of a forest setting. We have gone here before, usually around spring break time. In the past campouts you just have fun and go home the next day knowing there is time for another. But with this one it made me realize that we are upon our last or last few campouts and last everything’s together as one big group in high school.

Although we got some sprinkling here and there and had three big wind storms hit us, last night’s campout had to be close to if not the best one I have ever been  a part of. It was a good bond with some guys I have not seen so much of anymore but are still my close friends. And even if I do find a whole new group of friends when I am off at college or later in my life, they will be second to the group that I have been raised with in this little town of Holbrook. I am truly blessed with my friends.