I had an existential crisis this morning while folding laundry. It’s okay, it happens to me frequently.
You see, it started with considering a creative exercise about what happens when people die. You might think you know where this is going, but I would honestly be surprised if you go to the same place I did.
So what happens when you die?
Does nothing happen? Do you go to heaven? Are you a ghost? Are you reincarnated? Purgatory???
Do you stand before a judge? Do you go directly to God or gods or is there an in-between judge? Does Saint Peter decide if you’re allowed in Heaven or is it Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus deciding if you deserve Asphodel or Elysium?
A lot of these myths are old, so have they been updated? Is there a new Saint at the Pearly Gates because Saint Peter retired? Is Minos still relevant?
I wrote a short story once in which the newly dead ended up in a conference room where immortal lawyers argued about their life to reach a settlement in regards to the afterlife. Is that what happens?
Do you need a boat to get to the next life? Should we bury your cat with you just in case you need a friend?
Is the judgement of your life based on your deeds, or is it predetermined? Is it some sort of mix of both, like if a baby dies it is judged favorably because it’s never done anything bad or is the child judged poorly because it’s never done anything good? Do the living have a say in the judgment of the dead? If I pray hard enough, will my loved ones get into Heaven even if they lowkey sucked as people?
What if nothing happens?
If you’re more scientific than spiritual, and therefore think more about death itself rather than an afterlife, do you think people know they’re dying? And I don’t just mean if someone knows they’re going to die or not, because that seems like it would depend heavily on the situation surrounding their death, i.e. a person experiencing a sudden, traumatic death would be less likely to know than someone suffering a steady decline in health.
We have an undeniable consciousness, and scientifically speaking, that consciousness is just electricity wiggling our wet meat suits. (I’m a very scientific person, you can tell.) What happens to that consciousness as you die? Is it like a light that switches off immediately and completely when you die? Is it like an old lightbulb that flickers in and out of consciousness before exploding? Is it more like a radio, where there’s a moment, a brief millisecond of a moment, when you’ve cut the power but you can still hear the music, gently fading away, or static cutting into the silent abyss before the radio completely stops receiving the broadcast?
Is there a moment when you die when your life has been extinguished, but you are still conscious because the electricity is still wiggling? Do you have a moment to realize you are dead before the Nothing consumes you? Not an “I am dying” or “I am almost dead,” but a complete “I am dead.”
Personally,
I think reincarnation makes the most sense, what with my understanding of the natural world. I understand that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it is transformed or transferred into other forms of energy. It makes sense to me that spiritual energy would be recycled too, moving on to other forms of life. Of course, maybe Heaven or Ghosties are the recycled spiritual energy, rather than that spiritual energy becoming a plant or animal in this plane of existence. Who knows? Not me.
But anytime I think, “Okay, yeah, reincarnation is the thing I’m going to believe in,” I get trapped in more questions. Yes, we’re getting closer to the actual existential crisis and further away from the fun thought experiment where I was imagining Minos being replaced by Charlemagne or river boats being replaced with hovercrafts.
Because I can’t think about reincarnation without questioning Time.
Time
Is there an end to the cycle of reincarnation, e.g. Enlightenment? This implies to me that time is linear, that your soul has a journey with a beginning and an end, just like life has a birth and a death.
But, to me, that ruins the whole cyclical nature of the universe, which is what led me to reincarnation in the first place. If the cycle continues indefinitely, then this implies to me that time is also circular, a great loop with no beginning or end.
Which further implies that everything has happened and will continue to happen. Your soul has already done everything, gone through each phase of life, and is currently doing so again. Which would mean that every living thing is in actuality your soul. Your soul and my soul and everyone else’s souls are the same soul.
But it gets worse.
At some point, life as we know it has to end. Whether it ends because of human carbon emissions, an ice age, volcanos, meteors, whatever, we know that some sort of planetary apocalypse is inevitable. Even if some form of life continues on this planet after whatever will happen happens, in about 12 billion years our Sun will die, and in its death it will consume the Earth; our planet will be over.
So. Is that the end of the cycle of life? When the star we depend on dies? Or does the reincarnation go beyond that? Is it every form of life on every planet in every solar system in every galaxy? Mathematically speaking, we have to assume there are other forms of life in our universe; it is improbable that there isn’t. Is that unknown life also part of our one giant soul?
Now, I have to assume that our universe will also come to end one day, just as I have to assume it began at some point. Is that the end? Will I (we, you, us) reincarnate until the universe reaches its demise?
What about other universes? Just as I must assume there is life out there, I feel like I must also assume our universe isn’t the only universe. It just isn’t probable that we’re the only one. Does the life in those universes also reincarnate into the same mass soul? Do we exist infinitely in every possibility as a single entity in many places all at once and forever?
If we are all the same soul, then I feel as if I must be kind and compassionate to everyone. They are just forms of me at different times. But then, is that selfish? Is it kind to be kind to someone else when I believe they are me?
But wait, if everything has already happened and will happen again and continues to happen as I type and as you read my increasingly confusing considerations, does anything matter at all? If we all matter, isn’t that the same as saying none of us matter? Do my actions have consequences if I exist in eternity?
Certainly, this theory implies that my death does not matter. It is meaningless. I will not actually die; I will simply move onto another phase of existence, as I have done forever and will continue to do forever. I will do it again in this very body, and I am likely doing it again right now. There are other versions of me in this universe and in other universes typing this at this precise moment because all moments are this moment. My death will be your death, and your death is my death, and neither of our deaths are actual deaths.
and what the hell is happening
I am suddenly consumed by a nihilism that sits in my throat like a fire, or a lump, or a frog, or a lumpy frog on fire.
I am the only thing that matters, and I do not matter whatsoever.
I haven’t even explored the idea that universes are just atoms of a bigger being, but that's another thing that I often consider. But I honestly just don’t want to think about the implications of that right now. (It would also work the other way, with each of our atoms containing universes, going on forever smaller and going on forever bigger. But what is size anyways?)
I will forever be fascinated by people who know things that cannot be known. So many people are so sure of their religion, their spirituality, their god, their beliefs, and here I am, wiggling around in my wet, electric meat suit absolutely and completely convinced that I am an idiot who knows nothing.
I only know two things: 1) that I know nothing, and 2) that I hate Socrates.
So what do you think happens when we die? I have more laundry to fold, so I have time for another existential crisis.