1) Heaven does really exist and it’ll be like walking into a networking event where I have to make friends all over again with people I don’t know and don’t know me. Food will probably be better, though if I don’t have the need to eat, drink or take bathroom breaks and there is no weather, what do I do with my hands and how do I make small talk? And does it ever end? Will they allow dogs?
2) I gotta go this sh!t all over again and I will have maybe been doing it since the beginning of time without knowing it.
I just wanna stay dead and non-existent. Once is enough.
This, the first thing I'm reading today, before coffe even, and I'm thinking of that thing with feathers in my garage and why it makes me scream when if the damn thing was outside I'd say, "Look. How beautiful". I hope it flies out when I open the door. And sometimes, a small thing like that is the best you can hope for. Confusing maybe with hope? What a thought. Abigail, you are something. I hope to wake to your writing tomorrow. And maybe the next day too.
This: "Earth is getting ready to shrug us off." When folks are like, "the earth is dying" and "we're kiling the planet" my good friend always says, "Nah. The earth will be fine. It's us that's dying."
As someone who practices ancestor worship and welcomes my transitioned grandmothers to inhabit my home as they would like, I wouldn't mind coming back as a ghost, or rather an etheral being that can pop in and out of this realm as I so choose. If that's not how it works, I suppose I'd love to come back as a breeze or a Magnolia tree that someone falls in loves with.
May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by Sari Botton, Abigail Thomas
I love everything you write, Abigail Thomas, because (and while I know this is not music to your ears) because reading your writing gives me hope! Hope for lots more joyful moments in our future. Your writing makes me feel that connecting with each other, sharing some laughs together about even the most dire of circumstances, is good and fun and feels good, and that there is a lot more of that out there in this life.
I'm not thinking I'll be back, even as corn, however delightful that might be.
So while I'm still here, I research kindness and try to get others on board with kindness in thought, communication, and action. It's a turning incivility into civility kind of thing. Because I too have kids, grandkids, and relatives.
Finally, a post from someone as old as I. When I was in my 50’s and 60’s I did not think of myself as old. When I turned 70, it sounded old, but I didn’t feel it. But 80 is a different story. Now I’m old, and my thoughts are so similar to yours, Abigail, it’s as if you could have been writing from inside my mind. Even down to nearly the same number of family to feel concern for. (The similarities end when it comes to your painting and sculpting). Thank you for saying out loud what has felt like forbidden negativity when I express those sentiments. I love acceptance! - with a fight for what can really be changed, and a damn good place for the beloved swears. But it’s pointless and exhausting to fight against what is. Thank you for the validation.
Great article. I agree except I know there's no afterlife so I am secure that I will become nothing and no longer exist in any form except cremains. That is a wonderful relief. What is the nothing but cremains that was my mother is in the closet in the shopping bag it came in. I just looked up and because the closet door is slightly open, I can see it's there. Within the next few years, another shopping bag will be there. (My father is almost 97.) The nothing that was once my body will end up in a shopping bag, too. Atheism has always been life's greatest comfort to me.
May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by Sari Botton, Abigail Thomas
I think if hope spurs action for good then it is a potent vehicle for change. But if hope is just used as an excuse for inactivity then it doesn't serve anyone. As for the afterlife, I'm all about the Law of Thermodynamics. No energy ever disappears; it just transforms. So please let this body go back to Earth to feed more energetic life, and let whatever incorporeal energy is involved in my consciousness live on in the people that love me. I don't really understand the idea of believing in reincarnation as human life after human life. It seems out of step with all other natural cycles. Like, water becomes clouds and then rain and then ground water and then ocean water. It's all water, sure, but such a infinite variety of forms that, if water could recognize itself, might not. I'm a light mist, so what does a tsunami have to do with me? kind of thing.
Our bodies are 70% water, right? So, maybe next time I'll be thundersnow. That could be a whole vibe.
Love this, Abigail. Maybe, along with a finite amount of f**ks to give, we have a supply of hope that fades away. I sort of feel that myself. Realism arm-wrestling optimism at the moment. While I practice Buddhism, I think the sweet relief we'd have if forced to return is that we won't really remember, just vague familiarities from time to time instead of deja vue all over again. Christopher Hitchens wrote about confronting his end and put it as he didn't have any awareness before birth, so why should he have any cognizance in death? (Side note: I do believe if George Carlin and Christopher Hitchens were still here, 2016 would've ended differently.) I look at death as the great unknown, a very long, lovely nap with, perhaps, a brief period when we can come back and visit those we love and haunt the ones who deserve it. We'll just end up being recycled in that endless energy field and maybe, from there, we can contribute to a creative solution to the mess we've made here. xo
Read this as I settle into my day of writing / raising a family / trying to survive and it was just the perfect distillation of that cognitive dissonance I'm feeling all the time: Accept and also fight. Hope while everything looks hopeless. Be while watch the being come to a close. Oof. Thank you.
I love your outlook Abigail. I too, wonder about the afterlife. I come from a “Christian” family who think they know what the afterlife is, because, you know, the Bible! As if. My hope is, I return as who or what I’d like to be. A bird, I think, able to soar, to go wherever I want to. 🥰
Have to say I see no reason to be hopeful about our turning around what we have done to the planet or even pausing it. We're still killing it and everything on it. So I'm with you but it pierces me to the core. I don't just shrug. Sometimes I'm angry, a lot of times I feel shame for being part of the selfish human race.
write it! that's a veery funny idea!!
My two greatest fears about after dead:
1) Heaven does really exist and it’ll be like walking into a networking event where I have to make friends all over again with people I don’t know and don’t know me. Food will probably be better, though if I don’t have the need to eat, drink or take bathroom breaks and there is no weather, what do I do with my hands and how do I make small talk? And does it ever end? Will they allow dogs?
2) I gotta go this sh!t all over again and I will have maybe been doing it since the beginning of time without knowing it.
I just wanna stay dead and non-existent. Once is enough.
This, the first thing I'm reading today, before coffe even, and I'm thinking of that thing with feathers in my garage and why it makes me scream when if the damn thing was outside I'd say, "Look. How beautiful". I hope it flies out when I open the door. And sometimes, a small thing like that is the best you can hope for. Confusing maybe with hope? What a thought. Abigail, you are something. I hope to wake to your writing tomorrow. And maybe the next day too.
This: "Earth is getting ready to shrug us off." When folks are like, "the earth is dying" and "we're kiling the planet" my good friend always says, "Nah. The earth will be fine. It's us that's dying."
As someone who practices ancestor worship and welcomes my transitioned grandmothers to inhabit my home as they would like, I wouldn't mind coming back as a ghost, or rather an etheral being that can pop in and out of this realm as I so choose. If that's not how it works, I suppose I'd love to come back as a breeze or a Magnolia tree that someone falls in loves with.
I love everything you write, Abigail Thomas, because (and while I know this is not music to your ears) because reading your writing gives me hope! Hope for lots more joyful moments in our future. Your writing makes me feel that connecting with each other, sharing some laughs together about even the most dire of circumstances, is good and fun and feels good, and that there is a lot more of that out there in this life.
“My problem with dying is the possibility of an afterlife. What if we have to come back?” - I agree - once is enough! 😂 Great post, thank you. 🙏🏻
I'm not thinking I'll be back, even as corn, however delightful that might be.
So while I'm still here, I research kindness and try to get others on board with kindness in thought, communication, and action. It's a turning incivility into civility kind of thing. Because I too have kids, grandkids, and relatives.
Love your post and sense of humor, Abigail. 💜
Finally, a post from someone as old as I. When I was in my 50’s and 60’s I did not think of myself as old. When I turned 70, it sounded old, but I didn’t feel it. But 80 is a different story. Now I’m old, and my thoughts are so similar to yours, Abigail, it’s as if you could have been writing from inside my mind. Even down to nearly the same number of family to feel concern for. (The similarities end when it comes to your painting and sculpting). Thank you for saying out loud what has felt like forbidden negativity when I express those sentiments. I love acceptance! - with a fight for what can really be changed, and a damn good place for the beloved swears. But it’s pointless and exhausting to fight against what is. Thank you for the validation.
Great article. I agree except I know there's no afterlife so I am secure that I will become nothing and no longer exist in any form except cremains. That is a wonderful relief. What is the nothing but cremains that was my mother is in the closet in the shopping bag it came in. I just looked up and because the closet door is slightly open, I can see it's there. Within the next few years, another shopping bag will be there. (My father is almost 97.) The nothing that was once my body will end up in a shopping bag, too. Atheism has always been life's greatest comfort to me.
I think if hope spurs action for good then it is a potent vehicle for change. But if hope is just used as an excuse for inactivity then it doesn't serve anyone. As for the afterlife, I'm all about the Law of Thermodynamics. No energy ever disappears; it just transforms. So please let this body go back to Earth to feed more energetic life, and let whatever incorporeal energy is involved in my consciousness live on in the people that love me. I don't really understand the idea of believing in reincarnation as human life after human life. It seems out of step with all other natural cycles. Like, water becomes clouds and then rain and then ground water and then ocean water. It's all water, sure, but such a infinite variety of forms that, if water could recognize itself, might not. I'm a light mist, so what does a tsunami have to do with me? kind of thing.
Our bodies are 70% water, right? So, maybe next time I'll be thundersnow. That could be a whole vibe.
Love this, Abigail. Maybe, along with a finite amount of f**ks to give, we have a supply of hope that fades away. I sort of feel that myself. Realism arm-wrestling optimism at the moment. While I practice Buddhism, I think the sweet relief we'd have if forced to return is that we won't really remember, just vague familiarities from time to time instead of deja vue all over again. Christopher Hitchens wrote about confronting his end and put it as he didn't have any awareness before birth, so why should he have any cognizance in death? (Side note: I do believe if George Carlin and Christopher Hitchens were still here, 2016 would've ended differently.) I look at death as the great unknown, a very long, lovely nap with, perhaps, a brief period when we can come back and visit those we love and haunt the ones who deserve it. We'll just end up being recycled in that endless energy field and maybe, from there, we can contribute to a creative solution to the mess we've made here. xo
A great read! I have hop but I think you may have nailed it! I'll take corn~! thanks.
Read this as I settle into my day of writing / raising a family / trying to survive and it was just the perfect distillation of that cognitive dissonance I'm feeling all the time: Accept and also fight. Hope while everything looks hopeless. Be while watch the being come to a close. Oof. Thank you.
I love your outlook Abigail. I too, wonder about the afterlife. I come from a “Christian” family who think they know what the afterlife is, because, you know, the Bible! As if. My hope is, I return as who or what I’d like to be. A bird, I think, able to soar, to go wherever I want to. 🥰
Have to say I see no reason to be hopeful about our turning around what we have done to the planet or even pausing it. We're still killing it and everything on it. So I'm with you but it pierces me to the core. I don't just shrug. Sometimes I'm angry, a lot of times I feel shame for being part of the selfish human race.
Okay so now I’m no longer the worst pessimist on here. “Live somewhere it rains”. Lol.