Never been one to let the carrier drop

Paging universe: Death is getting old.

So tonight we lost two more – one who I knew only periphially, but who was a good friend to many of mine, in Socal. One I thought I knew better than I did. Another suicide.

This is really starting to upset me. (And my grandfather on my dad’s side, who I can’t say i’ve known very well, or liked, had a near brush with the reaper, but it looks like he’s going to pull through okay). Of course, I can’t imagine I’m the most upset, by a long shot.

There’s something very upsetting about watching your friends deal with the loss of their friends, and being able to say nothing, do nothing. I can very much understand how a afterlife would get invented, just because there’s something so upsetting about the terminal NO CARRIER – the link light, once gone, does not return.

I fear very much that the person that is me lives only in the sack of protoplasmic hardware that I haul around in my head. While, as someone once said to me, ‘I would prefer to live in a world with a afterlife’, I can’t fool myself. I’ve worked with computers and analog circuits and so many machine things enough that it’s not difficult at all for me to understand how humans can be just another machine. And, in fact, it’s very difficult for me to understand – especially given the data, including what people are like after car accidents and cancer – how we could be anything but.

I’d so like this world to be different than it is. In many, many regards, but this one most of all. I wonder if it is because I believe the things I do that I consdider war, violence, death to be so horrid. My mom can feel okay about voting for Bush even though he resulted in the death of thousands of innocents based on a lie – because she thinks surely they were all sent to heaven. In my world, there is no heaven, no hell.. while there might be a god – almost certainly is, in the sense that there’s something bigger than humanity formed by humanity, something bigger that all life formed by that life – I can’t believe that we are saved. No one has ever shown me any evidence that I am wrong.

I’d so like to see it.

My heart goes out to Megan, Spisak, and the other friends on my list who knew Ghent. I’m sorry for all you’ve lost – but I beg you to remember all you’ve gained. Life is precious and unpredictable, and ends at unexpected times for unexpected reasons. There’s nothing that can remind one more how important it is to be with your friends and lovers, while you can.. while they’re still breathing, and you’re still breathing. Because that goes away, and we have no idea what comes after. Unless god has come down and written you a personal email – unless you’ve had absolute and undeniable communication and you know you’re not crazy [which puts you several points ahead of me], you don’t know. I don’t know.

I wish I could say this will cause some basic change in my life, but I’m unlikely to give up two wheeled vehicles. You know the risks when you get on one.. no chassis to protect you and half the rubber for traction. But they’re still fun.. and almost everything fun is dangerous. On the other hand, I promise not to drive any bikes so massive that they couldn’t be stopped in a hundred feet.. 😉

Everything is variable. Everyone ends. For every life, there is a death.. something sobering to remember. Every person I talk to tomorrow, every person I hug, every person I send a email to.. will – in historical terms, very quickly – die.

So let’s live while we’re here, eh?

Again, my condolences to you all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2003 at 9:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.