Tuesday 18 July 2006

Pic of the day: The humans are getting restless. Or at least one of them.

Live forever?

As I was out in the break buying some food, I met an old man on my way back. He gave me the latest issues of Watchtower and Awake! respectively, or rather their Norwegian equivalents. I thanked him politely, paid nothing and returned to my office. Later, after closing hours, I took a pause and looked in Watchtower while my last.fm online radio was playing.

Most of you surely think that is a crazy thing to do, read that magazine, or indeed anything by "Jehovah's Witnesses". After all, these are the guys who think that humankind was reduced to 8 people ca 2500 BC, during the late bronze age. Presumably the Chinese tax accountants would not notice that all the Chinese were dead, as well as all their animals. Not to mention that the Chinese wrote Chinese before mankind developed different languages, and likewise Sumerians wrote Sumerian, and Egyptians Egyptian, well before the flood killed them all or the Confusion of Babel caused them to develop different languages. If people don't even know the past , why would we believe them when they tell us about the future?

It is kind of sad, really. It would be wonderful to live in the world of Jehovah's Witnesses. True, there is unmitigated evil in their world, powerful spiritual entities with no redeeming qualities, and these have the world under their thumb for the most part. But it is quite temporary, and for the most part Jehovah protects his witnesses unless their martyrdom is needed for the cause of the Kingdom. And even if they die, they'll wake up a moment later – so it will seem to them – to a wonderful new life on Earth, an Earth turned into a physical paradise, a true Garden of Eden. And there they will remain in a multiracial middle-class garden party for billions and billions of years without end, the laws of entropy dispelled by the almighty Jehovah, so that the sun will never blow up and the Earth never stop rotating. I'm not sure whether erosion will continue to wear down the mountains and continental drift press up new ones, but probably not, since that would cause earthquakes and volcanoes and climate change. There is probably no climate change in the Garden of Eden.

But who cares about the laws of physics when you can be young and healthy and live a perfect life with your friends forever? It is not even required to be particularly spiritual, although you must not actually do bad things. But spirituality is for the 144000 special people, and perhaps some of their disciples who are meant to be kings. Common people should not have that kind of ambition, nothing good can come from that.

***

While I quietly reflected on the beauty and the sadness of our two different worlds, I noticed the Internet radio began to play a song I had heard before. It is quite a beautiful song too. It is called "Forever Young", and one of the recurring lines is: "Do you really want to live forever?"

Bullseye, as you say in English.

When I was a kid, I did not want to live forever, just for a long time. Forever was just too long. I would be bored. I would like to travel and explore the universe for some thousand years, but in the end it would have to end. Then I grew up and I got a new kind of life where boredom does not exist. Or at least not the boredom of my childhood where I would just sit there and feel bored even though nobody stopped me from doing what I wanted. Now I need to be bedridden and then some to possibly feel that way. Probably if I lost my eyesight or control of my limbs. Yes, I think I am not more advanced than that, I would probably be bored then. But that is not part of this scenario. On a new Earth, or even better, a whole universe open to me, would I be bored? Not in a billion years! And by then I would probably be ready to start over with some things I hadn't done for the last 999999000 years.

Boredom is not the problem. The problem is that the cosmos was not meant for this. It is a temporary phenomenon, and we are even far more temporary phenomena deep within it, temporary dust motes on a dust mote circling a dust mote in a dust mote of a galaxy. Wheels within wheels, each smaller wheel turning faster than the larger ones, but all of them turning, the clock ticking towards its inevitable end. All things that have form are subject to change. All form is subject to decay.

Not 6000 years ago did the universe set out down this path to destruction, but an unimaginably long time ago, before Earth had taken shape or the Sun begun to shine. Not an afterthought, but the Creator's plan, no matter what name and attributes we use. Time was meant to be. Change was meant to be. The end of all things was meant to be.

Do I really want to live forever? Forever? Yes! I really want to. But not at the cost of trapping myself and the entire cosmos in stasis, annulling the Creator's course for it, which was already set in movement. I may want to live forever, but I don't want the cosmos to live forever, much less this beautiful, living planet. A baby is cute beyond compare, but you cannot honestly wish for it to never grow up. And it is the same with us. This world, the beautiful cradle where we woke up, and where we shall one day go to sleep, I shall be happy to see it turned into a true paradise. But one day I want to leave it, together with you if you so want, and we will explore all the rooms of the house. And much later, when we may have forgotten our baby crib entirely, we will open the door and leave for places we cannot imagine now.

Do I really want to live forever? Count on it. But not like this. (And I am not convinced that all Witnesses would, either. I ought to talk to them about that, one day.)