The Inner Garden

[danlo]

[Loredoctor]

*Ur-Vile enters Inner Garden and seats himself down in a quiet corner. He crosses his legs and begins to meditate*

[Zephalephelah]

Reality is that when I die, no one will matter to me anymore. If I only had the strength to be brave & do it now. So many people have a grating laughter, a geekish chuckle that makes me want to wish them out of existence. If only I could pull the trigger. I wish I could do it. I really do. Then I would no longer have to be in this vacuum called life where everything that people do or say is merely a completely unoriginal waste of everyone's time. Oh how I wish I could place my neck in the noose & kick out the chair. But I can't!!

Maybe if I took some people with me, then there'd be no choice in the matter.

But no, I made a vow that I would cause no one permanent harm.


Oh the pain lingers on and there is no cure but time. One day, one sweet day I will leave this world and it's many irritants. Until then, I'm stuck with people, lines of traffic, lines of people everywhere waiting for everything from a toilet to a driver's license. Stuck!

[dANdeLION]

Well, I can't help you with the toilets, but if you take the bus, you wouldn't have to wait in line for a license, and traffic wouldn't be such a big deal. I would do it myself, but I'm clearly superior to those geeky bus-rider types.

[Edinburghemma]

Public transport is the future and the WAY. Love your planet, not your vulgur jalopy.

[dANdeLION]

I agree. Unfortunately, being a bass player means I'm quite limited in my gear transportation options at the moment, so I'll continue to use the Pontiac for now.

[Edinburghemma]

Ah, have needs must. What you need is one of those Amazing Miniturising Machines. Available at all good electrical-goods stockists at a hellhole near you. NOW! (interest-free credit available, just 700 monthly installments of $25, no deposit)

[danlo]

It would be fun to try to carry a drum kit on a Segway. (Now you're going to axe me, 'what's a Segway?' )

So it seems we have two topics to choose from today: the environment or suicide. The only connection between the two I can make is that dead bodies make good fertilizer...I'd be lying if said I never considered the option but that was way long ago...There are too many blessings to be enjoyed and lessons to be learned in this reality. Life is good, if you look at it the right way. I found this on my morning surf and for some reason it cracked me up,

I'd rather slit my writs and watch my life’s blood slowly drain from my body until I am a cold, blue-lipped corpse, then work in fast food, or any job that deals with the public.. This is of course is why I am a poor, 19 year old who is still living at home. But putting side my patheticness, fast food is run by the lowest of the low. Within hours of working I’d hyperventilate and perhaps take out a few people before I turn the gun on myself. Instead I will remain a money-sucking moocher until the time my father kicks my ass out the door and changes the locks (or until I find someone stupid enough to give me an internship)

[dANdeLION]

Homicide is preferable to suicide, when looked at in the light of population-thinning. One can kill himself only once, but can kill others over and over again.

[aTOMiC]

Now we come to the ultimate question. What is death? Is it a ritual turning of the page? Is it oblivion sprinkled with eternity? Is it so ambiguous that death is whatever you wish it to be?

I hope that when my time comes I am ready for the transition. I have seen my dark days and the black cloud of self-termination was near but never fully present. Today I hope for a relatively pleasant end. Off in a sound sleep. Instantaneously disintegrated at ground zero of a 150-megaton blast. Something like that.

[danlo]

Well...that kinda of gives new meaning to the bumpersticker that says, "One nuclear bomb can ruin you whole day." Way to go Tom C! Always accentuating the postive! **suddenly hears Eric Idle singing, 'Always look on the bright side of life (whistles)'.

[Worm of Despite]

I hope for two scenarios:

1) If there is nothing after death, I just want to die peacefully. I'd like to go awake, so I know it's happening. I could savor the last moments like drops of wine at the bottom of the glass.

2) If there is something after death, I hope I can take my music with me, or at least I hope I'll have a mind that will still remember my music. It defined me, helped me.

Either scenario is fine. I don't ask for much. If there is a choice, give me a Sparatan, minimalist afterlife where the most beautiful part of it is simply being aware. But in reality, the only thing I know is to try and face death with integrity.

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

[dANdeLION]

Interesting. So tell me, how does one nurture the flowers in one's inner garden?

[aTOMiC]

I used to joke that being struck by lightning might be a cool way to go. For .0000234 seconds you would be transformed into a being composed of pure energy. Think about all the cool energy beings on Star Trek. Man that would be awsome.

For .0000234 seconds.

[Worm of Despite]

But think about the first Star Trek movie, with the dude whose molecules get all discombobulated when they try to beam him up. Now that is a cool way to go. For about three minutes he's a . . . thing. Heh.

I don't know about others, but whatever makes me happy is how I nurture my inner garden. I feel that this may be the one, brief bit of awareness I'll ever have, and then nothing after death. So I think my key to life is to enjoy it as much as possible. Not party or get drunk or do countless bungee jumps. Just enjoy the small things, ya know. Every little facet.

[dANdeLION]

That's the problem with ST I. Everything was so boring, even the iinstantaneous things seemed to take 3 minutes.....

[Worm of Despite]

So true. When they went into warp drive, it felt like I was watching one of those long 70s rock jams made flesh.

[aliantha]

You knew it was coming, tho, within the first 10 minutes of the movie, when they spent about 3 years circling the Enterprise in drydock....

Ah, death. Yeah, there was a time in my life when I considered doing a Virginia Woolf. But then I got a different job and moved out of West Virginia, and felt a lot better.

As a pagan, I'm supposed to believe in reincarnation. As a practical matter, I'm not so sure I like the idea. I like to think that the point of life is to learn and grow. I know that Buddhism -- or is that Hinduism? -- holds that we are reincarnated back into this world in a form that will teach us what we needed to learn in this lifetime, but didn't. But I rather like the idea of rising, after this lifetime, onto a different plane of existence, where we experience learning and growth of a sort that would be unimaginable to us here in this world.

Unless we read Deepak Chopra, that is.

[dANdeLION]

But I rather like the idea of rising, after this lifetime, onto a different plane of existence, where we experience learning and growth of a sort that would be unimaginable to us here in this world.

And, like no taxes!

[Worm of Despite]

I don't want to go to an all-knowing afterlife where I'll be some super being or something. No, I don't like the fit of that shoe. For all I know, there's no true meaning or reason or point to life. I don't think anything's set in stone. I think the meaning of life, the goal of life, is very different for everybody. It ranges from person to person. For me, the true goal of this existence is as simple as can be: to find happiness.

Maybe in the very ancient days, the paramount goal was even simpler: to survive. But in this day and age, civilization pretty much shelters us, and we have time to concentrate on fulfilling our wishes, our wants. It was much harder in the old days, though. In the old cavemen days they had to stalk their Hagen Das for five miles. All we have to do is zip down the road in a car and it's just sitting there, saying, "eat me!" Mm . . .