What Lies Beyond

One of my oldest and dearest friends has been facing the challenge of cancer that has spread to his bones (bone metastasis or "bone mets") that originated as prostate cancer. He faces this new challenge in his life with a sense of mindfulness, presence, and positive attitude. To those around him his attitude has been a balm for coming to terms with and accepting the (more than likely) inevitable conclusion of the situation. He messaged me this morning with an old quote of his he'd stumbled across. 

“At some point, the neural circuits will shut down, the lights of consciousness will wink out, and the long nighty-night will begin. And we will be freed from all human concerns by the gift of nonexistence. But until that point, we live still. After that point, we will be in precisely the same place we were before we were born. Not there, not anywhere and without a care.”

This is classic thought and attitude of my dear friend. I regret that his quote is spot-on. I regret what it means for all of us who will eventually leave behind those who have loved us and cherished our presence. It conjures questions and thoughts which have been pondered since time began. The curiosity of what lies beyond is titillating to say the least. We want to believe in something more. Everything we do has a beginning and an end. But those ends are always the beginnings of something else. We can't comprehend the notion of nothingness. Countless humans and histories have come before we joined this current one. Countless humans and histories will come after us. To try and wrap our brains around the notion that we will no longer "be" is difficult. To embrace that there may be nothing is onerous. It's not a dark room with no sound and all we have to do is open the door onto "the present." It's literally nothing. Can that possibly be? If we are energy beings in a particular form, and if energy can be neither created, or more importantly hopeful here, nor destroyed, do we transmogrify into something else? Sometime more? Something more "universal"? Are we caterpillars who become other-dimensional butterflies? Will we be able to observe old friends and loved ones "back here"? If "there" exists will we have emotions there? Will we join up with old friends and family who've been waiting for us in our new, possibly higher form? Do our energies attach to one another even in the wherever-that-may-be? I can't imagine that there will be emotions or thoughts as we know them. As sure as his quote says, we will most certainly be without a care.