Pietu

Truth is a matter of examining lies, superstitions, myths,gossip...

CG Jung-the psyche

"...instead of wild beasts, tumbling rocks, inundating waters, Man today, is exposed to the elemental forces of his own psyche."

Pietu on Morality

The willingness to be moral when relating to ones fellow man, points to a higher ethical code, than one who acts moral out of fear of divine reprisals.

Pietu thinks

How thoughts form or shimmer into being is often disregarded with perfunctory bliss. That it happens, flourishes in our inner world is enough substantiation to keep us from looking beyond the phenomena of its appearance. Had we struggled the slightest in 'conjuring up' our ideation would be be of no importance, for us it only packed the notion of its psychological import with more mystery...more nonsense...serving us rather with its stubborn hidden-ness with which we are more familiar, more accepting of. But if we were to dare look at the bare fact of its activity; perhaps we can make some assertions about its glittering life. Thoughts have a genesis and then the requisite dissolution of their being. Thoughts are 'held', 'maintained', 'pondered over', 'examined', and yet they must be abandoned when our roving interest unlatches its hold and grips on an old thought for a new one; or should we say we intentionally conjure new ideation to sweep away old scenes of consciousness. ---or our thought life maybe blindsided by a provocative emotion when a feeling ---sweeping over us-- demands our bodies be included in its import, at once preempting the tides and oceans of thought one can evoke when duly stimulated.

Forfeiture of Life

Pietu considers Death

What are we?

We come forward from the dim beginnings of our nativity; accruing our doses of experiences to create ourselves as personalities. Then to think we can enter the mystery of our death like some dandy entering 'the public' life. For assuredly we think we are going into a new realm, requiring our 'Sunday best', and think we shall trail our carefully constructed moral persona's across the divide between life and death.

Throughout our life, if we live in the western world, there is a constant threat shadowing our brightest spiritual optimism; therefore dulling our most assured moral confidence in ourselves. It is the constant warning: lest we make an accounting of our moral life by summoning divine help through faith in a redeemer, we shall be condemned eternally with pain in the next life we enter. That we must morally prepare for the life beyond is a common theological thread that runs throughout the fabric of every religion of the west. This alone sets the psychological prompters by which faith in a savior will be easily inspired...through terror. Anyone with a healthy nervous system shrinks in horror at the thought of suffering third degree burns forever. This threatening prospect makes it easier to bow ones head in faith; and the willingness to pay money for such 'capital' advise.

If we forgo the superstitions of fear and take up the strengths of our resolute courage we must look with conviction at death, staring as it were, into the darkness of our own souls, for at the end of its beginnings we are faced with a sphinx-like riddle. Let us pause therefore and stand before the door-way to death as examiners of a mystery. Our inadequacy as prophets, seers or oracles restricts our examination as an awkward guessing. There are no guarantees we will hear first hand reports of what to expect when one dies, for no one returns immediately from death to report of its shadows or wonders. This rare privilege to hear from the other side is denied us; we must rely on truncated tales snatched from death's jaws by those who have teetered between life and death. The only option we have is to parse over their words as descriptors of what they claim happened to them. Until we die, we will not know of its nature nor can we ever describe it for others, mainly because death does not permit the life of thinking, let alone its transcription into intelligible terms. But to think that we can even behold death as an experience shared by the dead is absurd, for by definition death ceases activity permanently; resurrections can be hoped for but they cannot follow an act that terminates in itself, all beginnings. Therefore it is always a terrifying affair when we face death, for we will always remain ill equipped to know what exactly it demands of us; other than our life will be taken away..but to where?

We know our being will be incontrovertibly drained of its vitality. But why would some power even initiate this finishing point? Is it a metaphysical strategy to conserve life-energy in general; fearful there isn't enough of its creative force to go around for other genesis projects? Or is it some bizarre catastrophe of nature, unable to create a perpetual life form---as would be an eternal human? It seems as a living being; we are given a crucial flame of energy flickering indeterminately as a luminous field of consciousness; and as long as this flame flickers its life, we have the fundamental determination that we are alive. Should we be rendered unconscious by injury, trauma, or drugs we are for the most part 'dead'; for consciousness can no longer animate its determinations of life if its neural connections have been ruptured. And yet we carry on as if our spirit can transcend any condition of pain, sickness, or injury. True we can achieve a modicum of tolerance for theses traumatic circumstances and accord our 'spirit' the means and wherewithal to rise above pain and suffering; but if our consciousness is blunted, shutdown, or out rightly annihilated; a condition follows where we haven't the means to register anything, for perception and thinking have ceased, imagination can no longer flicker its images, even the body can no longer reach consciousness to send any of its waves of sensation. So the notion of spirit as an independent component of being, able to transcend the bridges of neural life (of which our consciousness is determined by synaptic connections) strikes us as absurd. If the flame of consciousness is snuffed out; so too will its glowing filament of spirit become the charred end of a darkened wick, unable to illuminate its ethereal findings without its knot of energy tethered to consciousness. This 'earthly-light' cannot shine in the darkness if its mainstay neural infrastructure has been operationally compromised. One only has to think of the drug that puts us 'under' during an operation; the surgeon asks us to count backward from 100; we reach 98 and we hear someone calling our name, and to our astonishment we find that we have been 'out' for three hours...three hours of absolute oblivion! Alcoholics suffer a phenomena call 'blackouts', where memory of events while under the influence are completely obliterated, as if a portion of their life never occurred. Consciousness must be conscious of something, if it doesn't operate as such, life as we know it cannot be psychologically recorded at all. For all intent and purposes we are brain-dead, turned off as knowing beings, unable to confirm any truth.

To exacerbate the delicate balance of what is known and what our mind is unconscious of; consciousness seems to have the imperious attitude that it is somehow detached from the particulars of its body. Creating the pervasive illusion, our life is solely located in our mind. For the most part because of this illusory disengagement, our body is largely ignored unless it has been injured, sick or overly stimulated as in sexual states , euphoria or other signals to inform one of biological imperatives (hunger, digestion, defecation, urination, sleep..etc). This perceived illusion can be so profound we think feelings are a subset of consciousness and recognize them as a possession, something 'we have'; whereas an emotion is a wave of energy from the body that washes over us unbidden. Feelings happen to us; we do not conjure them, nor can we possess them in hopes of controlling their appearances. Lord knows if we did own them as such, we would never summon the worst of them, namely fear, dread, panic, sorrow, loneliness, rejection, to name but a few from a wide spectrum of feeling states. Our bodies are immersed in a circumference of activity restrictively connected with the rest of life; our physiological version of the macroscopic world is therefore local, human, individual, profoundly affecting the psychological perception of the 'world' as a somewhat biased version. Arguments can be raised that every human body will register the world with universal description; one only has to look at the bewildering differences of opinion when a truth is discovered, and the bungling attempts to confirm the truth with 'common-sense'. Truly we are trapped inside our minds unable to free consciousness from its confines, save but the imaginary flights of fancy, the figments of reality we might create as alternatives for a predictable existence. For the most part we are 'Promethean-bound', tied to the 'rock' of our brain tissue; their are no winged thoughts that can fly away from this neural-aviary. It is more likely thoughts will hop and perch from notion to notion, from pools of mental detritus to glittering formations of novelty. Essentially the life of the mind is a universe of cells that flash and spark in their communication with one another. We can measure the speed at which a thought can flash from synaptic locale to locale, but we cannot substantiate the telemetry of---so called---telepathic-thought.

By definition Death is the antithesis of life, and we the living do not have the means by which to judge or penetrate its inscrutable-mystery, hence any empathetic participation with death becomes a one sided relationship we must creatively invent. The reason for this imaginary relationship is the direct result of our observation of death as the ending phenomena of life and our futile attempts to make sense of it. What are we looking at when viewing a dead person? A life ends but what is left; what possibly can we relate to when we stare at the corpse? We sense a confounding emptiness where a life once animated a person. We know nothing is there that lives; and yet the likeness of a life still remains---like a grotesque effigy of what we once loved or knew---lying there to haunt our inquiry; inevitably, we haven't a choice, we are forced back upon our own feelings of dismay and puzzlement, we can go no further with our comprehensions, death has baffled us. Death does not offer any means by which we can understand its nature; for it is dreadfully silent; a silence which seems to be generated by an offstage 'thing'; as if an invisible entity were staring back at us with cruel finality. Our humanness being shut out by the unlimited silence of death, paradoxically insists there must be someone or something that can generate a power of this kind of secrecy; for it feels as if the 'thing-ness'of death, is somehow the personification of a lethal being. We sense its presence has watched us our entire life as a kind of predator who waits for the moment, when--'we'-- its prey, become mortally vulnerable, then appears with stealth like ability to swiftly snatch our life away. Another way of looking at our need to make a 'living-thing' of death, an urge to animate it as it were, is mainly the consequence of a classic psychological-projection. Any time we stare into the darkness of a mystery; the images evoked are always from the projected background of our own consciousness. This projected imagery of death becomes for us a 'real' version but it turns out because of this projection our perception of death is really imagined. Of course our imagined version of what death is, bears no likeness to the data the embalmer or coroner finds when applying there art to a cadaver. Our dumb-founded state of relating to an extermination of life is profound; and necessarily so, for it touches upon the very stays and ties that connect us with existence----namely----that which keeps us alive. We know birth, youth, adolescence, adulthood, the middle years, old age, but of the special flame that sustains the vitality of all these stages of life, we are profoundly ignorant of. It should not be a surprise then; we will confound ourselves with theories and mythologies of what death might 'feel' like. Science can measure the systemic failure of a living organism but of the spark of life that ignites its beginnings it can say very little. It is our religious nature, our wanting to retie ourselves to the original experience of human life in its primordial beginnings that continually stimulates the nostalgia for this ancient event. Dimmed by the stretch and yaw of hindering time we must turn to our imaginations when looking to the 'beginnings'. Genesis beginnings are beyond the reach of empirical contact; for they have long since had their extraordinary first day, the first moments of their flashing and thundering,the colossal bursting of their star fields that became future worlds known and un-known.

Every culture of humanity has a version of--'In the beginning'; all matching the prevailing particulars of their best spiritual capacity to convince with poetic-license of a time long since passed away. As much as the dramaturgy of great playwrights can be therapeutically beneficial; so too can the 'myths of beginnings' assuage our fears and concerns of being alone in the seeming desolation of a vast universe of which we live on the rim of one of its trillions of galaxies---'The Milky-way'. Ultimately answers are not given by the dead nor does a voice whisper to us in the stillness of a funeral home: "...fear not, death hath come to fetch its own...and shall return with its possession to the shadows and mysteries of oblivion...and you too shall be sought from the same shadows on the appointed day I name for thee..."

Speaking in teleological terms, death is not an 'existent', nor can it in any way perpetuate itself in a state of being, it cannot use 'time' to stage its eternal being as such; death does not participate in a 'Genesis', it is the absolute terminus of being, here then all comprehensions of its nature fall off into nothingness. It is 'no' thing and yet this very nothingness is indicated (shown where it is to be located as a phenomena) by a life-egression 'nothing' has become an exit-fingerprint. Beyond this exit; 'being' empties itself of its living force, validating the privilege of its participation in time, leaving the 'space' where having an existence was once located. All we can know is, 'Death; occurs after the light of an animating-energy leaves a living form, and nothing living can revive the glory of this life-giving spark once it has been snuffed out, nothing dead can return to the living trailing the gloomy shadows of oblivion to set itself afire with life once more, hence the term 'the-here-after' seems an appropriate way to describe the paradoxical synergy of life-death.

When we view the remains of a once living being, the worst of our reactions, when dreading death, will now resonate as a ghoulish reality. We conjure the illusion that a living specter of annihilation is present; with extreme vividness our life is thrown into great relief, for here opposite us, is the supreme contrast of life.

Now let us move closer to a dead body on an even more intimate level. We approach it with faltering step, we bend down in awe-struck respect and 'kiss' goodbye the forehead of our dead friend or loved one, our lips feel as though we had kissed a cold stone. It is then we know; we no longer can relate to the remains, they have somehow become inorganic, lifeless, inanimate----cold as iron. It becomes easy to detach as such, with a frigid-kiss, and sense we are looking at a mannequin who resembles our departed one.

We perceive a body with a 'nothing' inside, startled and taken aback by this discovery, we now see it as a carcass---an inorganic shell of a once animated person---now become a sepulcher of leftover matter; abandoned like an emptied house. Blinking and indistinctly numb we think to ourselves...someone used to live here, they have gone, never to be found again, never to return to this cold tomb of flesh. With this in mind it is of no matter when we leave the remains of a dead person, be it a loved one, friend or close acquaintance; we think to ourselves my presence is useless. We look up to sober ourselves in the presence of this raw scene. With every living cell in our body we know the corpse before us is now a perishing tomb...a dust to dust. It is then we know we will never see or hear from them again; at this moment our intuitive sense begins its childlike wonderment to concede it has been denied entry into the new world they have just entered. Through the veil of our tears it seems as if an ethereal energy drifts away from our sadness, and we take it to meant it is they, the departed, who just moments ago returned our love, are now wandering away, trailing the diminishment of their 'being' as whispering memories. One by one our thoughts become singular imperatives of acceptance. Each new moment of resolve feels like a gentle nail we ourselves must drive into our aching hearts. We are compressed into the space of a poignant moment emptying and filling with flashing memories of their lives. We remember glittering moments of their character and know these snippets of their life, as the final screening of their life, as the final screening of their character, for never again will images of them be as vivid, as alive... yet dying a little each time they are revived in the future moments of recollection... the resurrection of the dead never seemed more futile.

How many of us have assisted the last hours of our loved ones with soothing comfort, mercifully acting as midwives of their death, knowing we must deliver our dying loved one from the last of their waning efforts to remain alive; prompting an offering of bitter-sweet advice, "...it's ok to left go...it's ok." These will be the last words of a conversation not soon to be forgotten; for it is hinged to the gate of death as if our permission were required to open its frightening latches with proper nobility. Once the life of our loved one 'passes' a great peace comes over the scene, lingering as if the world itself had entered this sacred space to witness one of its own lights shining unsteadily, then suddenly dim and sputter out. Then like an unearthly chaperon, the still-born peace leads one into the coming moments of sadness, as if the space emptied of human-life is too obscenely naked and must be filled at once with the consecration of human weeping.

On a purely objective level to behold a 'dead' body is a cruel realization that one has finally experienced an alien form of nature. Nothing will seem as contradictory in appearance as a cadaver that still remains as a likeness of something that once lived. It is a paradox par excellence; for the remains identify the life of one who looks like the remaining body and with as much finality identifies the death of the one who looked like the remains when alive. With this insult to the tidy logic of our common sense it seems practical to begin a quiet detachment, one that will soon become a convenient memory marking the event for recall in the future. But each time this mnemonic graveyard is revisited the departed are a little less know...always fading with the threatened possibility of permanent amnesia.

Having left the graveside, the bedside, or the funeral home we are alone with the aspect and confirmation of the dead ones' absolute withdrawal from our presence; left instead are the emblems of their life; clothing, jewelry, items used for their hobbies, now become like stage props carelessly left behind; a tactile means by which to make contact with them one more time. We might smell the pillow they slept on, or rub and caress a favorite shirt worn by them, perhaps stick our feet into the very shoes that carried them to and fro in life. Gradually this ceremonial remembering is overtaken by the creeping notion these too are the remains of the dead---an inert 'abandoned heap' once favored by them. Now weary with the gnawing disappointment we shall never see them again we look upon these fragments of their lives as haunted fingerprints; clues as to who they were in life. We now feel the enticement to at once begin a relationship with these items, for our aim is to somehow maintain physical contact with our loved one, and we know these articles once received the living touch of their splendid hands. Jewelry is worn or earmarked as a gift for a future adult of the surviving family, personal articles of clothing are now incorporated into the wardrobe of the living or are passed on as an inheritance. Photographs, once taken to assist ones memory of special moments in their lives, now become painful affidavits of death. If the one deceased is from another city, county or state, pictures of their likeness become final proof of their odd status as the visitor who rudely left our life without word or location of their destination. There is a perilous moment of credulity when the reading of the will takes place, for one hears the words of the dead from beyond the grave spoken by the presiding executor or lawyer as if they were inhabited momentarily by the family member who passed on. Any prompting or reminder of the 'passed-on' makes us feel unnaturally abandoned. The coming certainties of their death feeling like miniature funerals we must attend over and over until finally these painful moments too become distanced from our attention. We begin to sense the futility of resurrecting their images from photos or memories---for each time we seem them reminds us of their departures and our helplessness to restore the magic of our living relationship with them. Now the means of relating to their personalities will become an impoverished abstraction of their real life, now expired.

And despite the hard evidence of the coroner, the dirt covered coffin, the sight of real cadavers used by medicine, we still hang on to the scraps of hope when we hear the reports of those who have momentarily left their mortality in a near death experience. They tell us of a beatific light that beckons to them with unearthly peace, washing over them a pure love that opens the portals of immortality, tempting them to leave the earthly ways to join the infinite. Or they tell us of waking up floating above their bodies watching calmly the urgent attempts to save them from death.

Some give us the ultimate faith to believe in the hereafter, when they tell us of seeing family members beckoning from auras of mystical light. This becomes the definitive report of hope that shores up our conviction by giving us tantalizing hints of a possible vastness that holds and delivers our dead relatives to us, a realm or field of occurrence that displays its features of eternal ending to our world in supernatural shape. And yet death in its full disclosure is still obscured from our confirmations. We are left helplessly with the sense that death is a profound finale---a disquieting condition that will finish off our humanity. To even think that our experience as a living thing will cease, sends us scurrying to the fortress's of Religion. We seek the comfort of a priest pastor, or bishop half knowing they will prescribe the usual advice, "...god has a plan, take heart the peace of the soul is in the lord."

Visually we cannot summon the sufficient metaphor for non-existence, without lapsing back into an effort to picture death figuratively. We sometimes use darkness, emptiness, nothingness, absence---yet we sense it misses the mark of its true impact. So we personify it as a kind of 'living-figure' dressing it in black robes with cowls that obscure its face, or use the human skull stripped of its living flesh, flashing a grotesque grin.

DEATH...how can this be? Being is pure existence, death is its annihilation. How can nothing go into anything? I apologize for using vague terms such as nothing and anything---there isn't an entry or an exit for a human-being that has expired. Why wouldn't nature insure the preservation of the human condition? We have our books our cameras, our museums; but are they enough? Snapshots of life are what they are. Mere stills, as if the experience of life could be set tableau-like, fixed or immovable for our existential-neurosis to make the moment eternal.

We are in need of a deep catharsis when we experience the life of others expired. So why not anoint ourselves with the spirit of truth and daily remind ourselves we are abundantly saturated with life; constantly in need of appreciative appraisals of its miraculous offerings. Instead we persist with a 'perceptive-dandy ism' cherry picking our moments one by one from the past, or from the future; but never regarding the 'now' as the eternal moment or as a storehouse of discoveries. Here is the paradox of dying yet living; everywhere in our lives the question of being encroaches steadily with haunting persistence, forcing us to make better sense of this lavish gift called life. For the most part we are of a nature that offers consciousness, a keen awareness of an internal experience; here is where 'the human-experience' sheds its being onto a ground of existence; inside our minds is where the meaning of 'being' exhausts itself till death do us part. In this very life of the mind do we pull the strands of memories from deep pools of experience as old people; but who has tended these mnemonic waters? Certainly we don't. We are far more concerned with the demanding minutiae of our lives, half afraid if we are idle we have somehow become immoral, as if the unexamined life, is somehow spiritually sanctioned by the metaphysical powers that be. Hence these living waters of memory can be polluted with the nonsense of reckless frivolity, the human curse of blithe indifference. It seems like a foolish habit of mind to think;
"...do not concern yourselves with this life, the next one is far more important!" In short all matters of our oblivious attitude that we have yet another day to ignore! This is the ubiquitous forfeiture of life.