Sunday 2 March 2003

Pic of the day: This picture is only from the game Dark Age of Camelot, but it was the best I could find to capture the spirit, as it were. The spirit of defeat.

Damned if we give up

I had this weird dream this morning before I woke up, and unlike the fragmented pictures that followed, this one stuck with me when I woke up.

In my dream, angels came down from on high and pronounced judgment on us individually. They went around to each person once and told us the verdict: Saved or damned. When an angel came to me, the judgment was damnation. I wasn't entirely shocked, but I wasn't happy about it either, and tried to reason with the angel. But the angel was just doing its job, and did not reconsider or stop overlong. Once it was clear that I had understood, I was alone again.
The angels did not even send us on our way to Heaven or Hell. They just moved on; but the saved got some kind of protection, that made it impossible for any of the damned to hurt them or even come close to them. They went away to do paradisaical things, at least they left, to the west I believe. We who were damned were left behind with each other, which was most of us. And then all order and civilization fell apart. Violence went unpunished and unreproached. We were after all damned, what would it help to threaten with punishment one who is bound for Hell itself?
I kept searching for ways to circumvent the judgment; if not for me, then for the majority of mankind that was damned. It seemed that the angels' touch had left everyone sterile, but perhaps the race could still be kept going in some form with cloning? It was not as if God or the angels or the saved were doing anything to stop us – we were simply ignored. But no one paid any heed. We were all withering, going to Hell on our own feet. Hope was dead, and so would we all be soon enough.

I woke up in a less than jubilant mood, despite the clock radio reading some poem about an old man who was reading the Bible despite his bad eyesight and came safely to Heaven's shore. This started after I woke up from the dream and some foggy stuff that followed it, so it was not the cause of the dream. I was still thoughtful as I got up and wrote the dream down.

***

So, is this a sign from the Lord that I better repent or I'll be damned for eternity? Well, there is certainly something to that. It is hardly a divine life I live. I guess I'm a decent human, but that doesn't really stack up when you compare with people like Jesus Christ. I'm simply not that kind of guy. But enough of that for now.

The dream reminds me of the entry I wrote about how those who want to serve will automatically create a Heaven, while those who want to rule will create a Hell. In some part this again may have been inspired by Sartre's short screenplay "Hell is other people", in which a small group of selfish people are put together in a room and told that they will stay here for eternity without being able to ever close their eyes.

***

But what struck me this time was the effect of losing hope. Once hope was lost, all was lost. All future, all meaning was cut off by the simple judgment. Yet, even should we go to Hell, would it not be worth making life meaningful the time we still had left? Why would hurting others make anything better, when common (?) sense tells that helping each other would make our remaining time a bit less painful instead.

Normally, you know, it is not angels who tell us that we are worthless. It is we who tell ourselves or others – often not even with words – that we or they are damned. Worthless. Hopeless. Good for nothing. Does it sound familiar?

But even if we fail, we are still who we were before we realized our failure. I was just a young boy – ca 17 – I can remember the place but not quite the time, when I decided that whether I was damned or not, I would still live in the shadow of the Almighty for the rest of my life, if I were allowed to. And basically this has not changed to this day. And as I write this, I realize that I am not sure I would believe an angel over the voice in my own heart. Perhaps. Perhaps not. I might despair, but I suspect I would still be me. I hope I shall not have to try this in real life, though.

And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of song
with nothing on my tongue
but Hallelujah ...

(Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah.)