it's a joke
A recent conversation:
Six year old: Mom, don't drive past the cemetery! I don't like it!
Four year old: Why don't you like it?
Six: That's where the dead people are.
Four: Why did they all die over there?
Six: All people die and then they bring them to the cemetery
Four: All people die? Mommy, do all people die?
Mom: Yes, all people die.
Four: Am I gonna die?
Mom: Yes.
Four: And you?
Mom: Yes.
Four: Is this true or is this a joke?
Mom: If you need this to be a joke then it can be a joke.
Four: It's a joke.
I remember all the nights as a kid I spent in terror of nothingness. I never thought of heaven. Never feared hell. The quandry of non-existence I felt and understood naturally.
Now, I am insulated against it. My reaction to the conversation above is to combat it with my particular brand of humor: It's life, but yeah, it's a joke...it's a big fuckin' joke.
But sometime in the middle of the night after I heard and laughed about that conversation, I felt that fear in earnest for the first time in many years. Sitting here now, I can pile barriers of rationalizations and jokes and Zen-isms in front of it, but to recall that fear...that is to remember what it is to be a child.
Six year old: Mom, don't drive past the cemetery! I don't like it!
Four year old: Why don't you like it?
Six: That's where the dead people are.
Four: Why did they all die over there?
Six: All people die and then they bring them to the cemetery
Four: All people die? Mommy, do all people die?
Mom: Yes, all people die.
Four: Am I gonna die?
Mom: Yes.
Four: And you?
Mom: Yes.
Four: Is this true or is this a joke?
Mom: If you need this to be a joke then it can be a joke.
Four: It's a joke.
I remember all the nights as a kid I spent in terror of nothingness. I never thought of heaven. Never feared hell. The quandry of non-existence I felt and understood naturally.
Now, I am insulated against it. My reaction to the conversation above is to combat it with my particular brand of humor: It's life, but yeah, it's a joke...it's a big fuckin' joke.
But sometime in the middle of the night after I heard and laughed about that conversation, I felt that fear in earnest for the first time in many years. Sitting here now, I can pile barriers of rationalizations and jokes and Zen-isms in front of it, but to recall that fear...that is to remember what it is to be a child.
posted by sparklestone at 8:22 AM
2 Comments:
I so hear you.
4 year old: Mummy do you love Daddy?
Me: Yes
4 year old: You won't love him when you're dead.
How do you answer that?
lesley,
Entire religions have been founded in the attempt to provide comfort for your 4 year old's statement.
My answer is to found a new one. The basis is that when you die you turn into "pure love" (ie, the crema on beautiful shot of espresso).
Some of us will wind up in over-marketed corporation coffeeshops and will be sent back into the loop.
Some will wind up in places with blade grinders which pulverize and heat the grinds rather than the smooth action of a fine burr grinder. Back into the stream you go.
We might end up in the perfect scenario. Beans, roast, grind, machine...but without our caffieniolous (true love[s]).
When we finally achieve The Great Pull (Oneness, Nirvana, Satori), we return to Earth as Immortals (people who don't blog).
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