Some intro not-related to the topic
I didn’t write in awhile. I had the instinct to write in romanian cause’ that is the country where I was born. Then, I remembered that I live in a bubble. And I don’t like this bubble. So, maybe I should get in another one?
I mean all of us live in a bubble, but is the bubble that we live in actually good for us. I certainly understood in the last years that I couldn’t “self-actualize” as Maslow said in a post-communist country with traditional mentality and defectous institutions. I’ll name a few defectous institutions in our country like health, education, politics, police.
Anyway, I’m glad about my decision to switch to english on my personal blog cause now instead of having a an audience of mostly 20 milllion people and declining cause we have a few million people who understood faster than me that this country isn’t a good place to live in and emigrated, now I can have a possible audience of a few billions of people.
And I’m pretty sure that globally my writing or what other projects that I am doing can be more impactful.
Let’s get to the title topic
I met a few days ago a guy who lives on the Athos mountain in Greece. He is not a monk, he tried to be for a year, but he told me it is too hard. He lives there and he seems to be glad by the life he has. He seemed positive, calm and emotionally stable when we met.
I never met somebody from this kind of backrounds, but I’m wondering why some people decided to live this kind of life. I have a hypotethical answer, it may not explain all about it, but it has to do with death and possible afterlife.
In my mind, he believes that if he behaves well in this life and prays to GOD, he will live for eternity in heaven.
Even, scientifically, it may seem a good choice. If you think that the Earth is around 4.6 billion years old and the Universe appeared around 13.8 billions years ago, you may think that this approach to pray to God to live this life dedicated to God for around 75 years is worth it. Certainly, you don’t want to live in hell for 10 billion years, right?
Well, I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in no book written by humans around 1700 years ago with a lot of science fiction claims and discovered myths. I prefer the new books. They are not perfect. Still, people gathered and evolved pretty much in the last 2000 years, so I would prefer some new writings.
Though, I don’t want in this article to criticize religion cause’ I am not a teenager anymore.
I want you to tell me about my vision of death.
It is rooted in existential philosophy.
The idea is that because we are certain that we are going to die, we must live our lives the best way we can. And I believe it comes along with FOMO. Or fear or missing out. I mean if you know that you are going to die and you are an atheist as myself, you may think that you should try to do anything fast in this life because you are getting old and you will die and probably you won’t live an entertaining life as this one.
In my opinion, a miracle in a way is life itself. The odds of being born in this era are pretty small. Actually, I researched and scientists claim that is one in 400 trillions. Just thought now, that if a suicidal person, who likes facts knew this information, it may be a good anti-suicide prevention. So, I may stay commited to my approach, cause’ apparently I shouldn’t be here, still I am and if there is a heaven, I may get there by being philosophically moral, not by praying to invisible forces.
Though, having this approach of believing in FOMO and trying to live your life to maximum may have some downsides obviously. Even though my life is full of experiences and interesting thoughts, I may be reckless and not that emotionally stable, or more stressed cause’ I gotta do everything before my body, mind, soul or whatever runs out of battery.
Though, the main point that I wanted to touch in this article is that what we think about death give us a meaning in this life. And it may matter pretty much. I don’t believe a best approach exists. I care about the truth. I’m not sure if I have it, though I still believe that trying to live your life at maximum is great. At least for me.
So, have you thought about this?
How your beliefs about death give you meaning in your life?
Tell me in the comment section.
Alex Combei
Romanian
English