Leaving it all Behind
[thoughts from ~burning woman~ by Sha’Tara]
“I’ve led such a little life and even that will be over pretty soon. I’ve allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there was so much more and it’s all gone unused. And now it will never be… (crying)…
“Why do we get all this life if we never use it? Why do we get all these feelings, dreams, and hope, if we don’t ever use them? That’s where Shirley Valentine disappeared to. She got lost in all this unused life. (from Shirley Valentine – the movie)
“…And he was left alone. It was impossible to measure time, other than by the slow evolution of his own emotions. He endured despair. Why had he been brought to this point in spacetime, preserved in such a fashion, and then so casually abandoned?
“The despair turned to anger and lasted a long time.
“But the anger faded.
“He became curious.
“He began to experiment with his new awareness. Physically he seemed to be composed of a tight knot of quantum wave functions; now, cautiously, he began to unravel that knot, to allow the focus of his consciousness to slide over spacetime. It was as if he were flying over the arch of the cosmos, unbound by limits of space and time. Throughout the galaxy he found works of man [and] everywhere he found relics of war. Ruined stars and worlds, squandered energy. He found no people—no sentience—anywhere.
“Soon there was little of the human left in him. […] He was ready for the final step. Human consciousness was an artificial thing. Once humans had believed that gods animated their souls… Later they had evolved the idea of the self-aware, self-directed consciousness. Now Michael (Poole) saw it had all been no more than an idea, a model, an illusion behind which to hide. (from “Timelike Infinity” by Stephen Baxter)
The looming global social crisis: the collapse of the financial system – due to banking and corporate mismanagement and greed of gargantuan proportions; the inanity, insanity and mental instability of the meat puppets called government representatives and attendant bureaucracies and the emptiness and spiritual hollowness of religious exercise, are combining to tell the 7-plus billion supposed intelligent, sentient, self-aware Earthians that the time to play at being irresponsible, vile and violent children, is ending. “Your house will be left to you desolate…” Indeed, and who could argue that now?
Shirley Valentine recognized the fact that she, and only she, had allowed herself to remain small, to bury her talents rather than investing them in life. It had been so much easier just to go along with the dictates of her society than to yell out defiantly, “Tomorrow at dawn, I ride!” She’d settled to become an invisible, abused middle-aged housewife.
Michael Poole entered a black hole singularity and travelled through time to come face to face with infinity, and saw how much the whole concept of space and time boundaries had twisted his human past. Millions, perhaps billions, of years in some unimaginable future he awakens to see his body die, frozen in deep space, and himself to become pure consciousness, observing the old universe shattered and extinguished. But then he saw movement in a boxlike construct, and he realized that “history” was starting again…
Shirley and Michael had this in common: both realized belatedly that life was a gift; that change was not only inevitable but absolutely necessary if life was to continue and to make sense.
Shirley left England for a two week vacation in Greece and never came back, abandoning her past, her family and culture to embrace a whole new way of life on her own.
Michael abandoned his now obsolete humanity to become the “new” Observer of a cosmos shaking itself up to create a new living reality, to start again.
Unfortunately, of the masses of people moving around the planet, travelling or relocating, very few are Shirley’s or Michael’s. The key point is, abandon your past; your attachments; your little special things. It is the attachments that conspire to create the little life and the false beliefs in some kind of predictable continuity. These “travelling” people are not leaving, they are acquiring. They want security while ever-unaware that their every step is over quick sand.
I’ve been very curious about the future lately and I ask myself, should I not be inquiring about “that” aspect of life? Seems to me we go on and on, aging yet pretending we are not, acting as if there wasn’t going to be any end and certainly, any accounting for a wasted life. I have come to accept that this particular eye-blink spasm we call life is a passage between other states of reality. I have also come to accept that this life is a vehicle, not a home. I was given a chance to learn how to drive a piece of spacetime in the cosmos, and soon, there will come a test of that driving ability. What did I learn? What do I have to contribute to the coming reality? Just as important, what did I do (how did I drive) to leave this vehicle in better shape than when I inherited it?
To Shirley’s husband and family, she had lost it – gone loop-the-f--king loop. How could she do that? To Michael Poole, well, there was no one left to say he had gone crazy when he entered a black hole singularity – alone. Of the billions of humans who had lived, fought, scattered throughout the galaxy and beyond – no one had survived. Some had theorized on the possibility of letting it all go and making a jump for it, but only Poole actually did it. And only Poole lived to see the real future.
What did it cost Shirley and Michael to follow their dream? Everything that is worth nothing.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that made all the difference.
(Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken)
Sha'Tara writing is very expressive.
Thank you for sharing.
Lady Mary Ann
This is one of the few articles that I have some disagreement with. While I believe that most of us do little with the time that we have allotted in this life, few have the opportunity, like I have, to break free from the norm by both education and disability.
Shirley Valentine comes the closest, except that by running off to Greece and having another life, did she really do any better? My uncle did that and left five children in disbelief. His second life was even less than the first––just lying low and becoming more alcoholic until he died. The spark of his first life was totally gone.
Michael Poole is pure fiction––very good fiction––but written purely in terms of current human existence and not in any way reflects the existence and time when we are space travelers enough to enter a black hole. Except as a great story, I would have to wait until Poole actually left the human race before I could make any profound judgments about what he found on the other side. Similar to Arthur C. Clarke's hero, Dr. Dave Bowman, discovering other worlds as he approaches the extreme gravity of Jupiter in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
While I can agree that consciousness resides in my brain, I cannot agree that I was conscious before I was born into this world and will be conscious after I leave. All the more reason to make the best of this life regardless what road one takes.
Ron
Love ya!
Jane
It's a long long road..check it out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRp6Gh3HXuA
Dear Regis,
If you can help another everyday of your life you will understand the purpose of life.
Peace, love and multiple blessings,
Brother John
Much thanks Regis :)
Myrna