no exit
One of Sartre's most enduring lines is in his play, Huis clos ("No Exit" to the uninitiated) aka his now-famous maxim: "Pas besoin de gril: l'enfer, c'est les autres!" ("No need for irons: Hell, is other people!")
Is it? What is Heaven/Hell for you? How do you get to Heaven/Hell?
Traditional Church (RC, Christian, whatever your denomination) doctrine calls for a firm belief in God (Jesus or The Big Man Himself), the Cruxifiction, the subsequent Resurrection, etc. Here's where the different denominations start to branch off, though the end is still the same. Believe, pray, live your life as doctrine calls for, and you'll be up there, hanging outside the Celestial Improv Bar or something like that.
And before you start calling down upon the divine powers of St Michael to smite my blasphemous hide to Hell and back, hear me out. At least give me a chance to explain myself - all the baddies in the movies get a chance to ramble on before they get busted/killed, don't they?
I talked to a (very very very) good friend regarding the afterlife today, and it raised a few questions (no surprise there) in my mind. Is the afterlife merely an answer to the existential crisis that is Life itself? Given the current state of the human condition, I would think so.
One of my favorite quotes recently has been from Albert Camus: "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the question of suicide]." (I'm not too sure, but I think this is from The Myth of Sisyphus. Correct me if I'm wrong, won't you?)
That seems to ring very true. If you answered no, well, it's unlikely that you would be reading this; if you answered yes, then... wouldn't it imply that this life, the one you are living right now, is Heaven? Your life - the only one you will ever live - is the result of choosing to be in Heaven right now. Theorizing about what the afterlife may be like is pointless, really. You're still stuck here, and there's no way to prove or disprove any theory about the afterlife. The most that we could agree on would be the incommensurability of our different religious frameworks, a la Richard Rorty. Or we could just kill each other, I suppose. That might work out too. An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.
Before I close though, I see a few puzzled faces. Why is this life Heaven? I answer to you, why not? You are in this life right now, my dear reader. All the more you should make the best of it. Learn. Smile. Laugh. Read. Think. Jump.
Most of all, live.
After all, there is no exit from this life.
... not yet, anyway.
*I don't really know what the point of this entry is yet, but it really arose out of nothingness, so it's only fitting that it resolves into nothingness.
Is it? What is Heaven/Hell for you? How do you get to Heaven/Hell?
Traditional Church (RC, Christian, whatever your denomination) doctrine calls for a firm belief in God (Jesus or The Big Man Himself), the Cruxifiction, the subsequent Resurrection, etc. Here's where the different denominations start to branch off, though the end is still the same. Believe, pray, live your life as doctrine calls for, and you'll be up there, hanging outside the Celestial Improv Bar or something like that.
And before you start calling down upon the divine powers of St Michael to smite my blasphemous hide to Hell and back, hear me out. At least give me a chance to explain myself - all the baddies in the movies get a chance to ramble on before they get busted/killed, don't they?
I talked to a (very very very) good friend regarding the afterlife today, and it raised a few questions (no surprise there) in my mind. Is the afterlife merely an answer to the existential crisis that is Life itself? Given the current state of the human condition, I would think so.
One of my favorite quotes recently has been from Albert Camus: "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the question of suicide]." (I'm not too sure, but I think this is from The Myth of Sisyphus. Correct me if I'm wrong, won't you?)
That seems to ring very true. If you answered no, well, it's unlikely that you would be reading this; if you answered yes, then... wouldn't it imply that this life, the one you are living right now, is Heaven? Your life - the only one you will ever live - is the result of choosing to be in Heaven right now. Theorizing about what the afterlife may be like is pointless, really. You're still stuck here, and there's no way to prove or disprove any theory about the afterlife. The most that we could agree on would be the incommensurability of our different religious frameworks, a la Richard Rorty. Or we could just kill each other, I suppose. That might work out too. An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.
Before I close though, I see a few puzzled faces. Why is this life Heaven? I answer to you, why not? You are in this life right now, my dear reader. All the more you should make the best of it. Learn. Smile. Laugh. Read. Think. Jump.
Most of all, live.
After all, there is no exit from this life.
... not yet, anyway.
*I don't really know what the point of this entry is yet, but it really arose out of nothingness, so it's only fitting that it resolves into nothingness.
NIGEL
4:14 PM
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