what have I been up to then of late? not a lot really. Had a couple of pints with my flatmate last night and enjoyed it. Got an early night as I had to be in for the crack of dawn to get working on a job for spavins company. (I'm painting an aerial view of dublin at night, you can imagine it would be quite an long job). I only hav until end of play monday to finish it too, gonna be tight. Woke up in the middle of the night and had one of my 'you're going to die one day, you know' moments. Not that I am ever unaware of this fact I just get these moments where that fact fixes me with, well, terror. I'm a worrier by nature anyway so I guess death is the most worrying event in a lot of peoples lives. At times I think I'm ok with it but the fear and wonder at it never leave. The ceasing of me, the end of my concious existence. I spend desperate hours upon hours reading books upon books to try and grasp some sense of understanding about it all but all we have are glimmers. I think the theory that sat best with me was the final anthropic principle, which I am going to read up on more. But as people say of it, it is more of an idea of a theory than a theory. But it rings well with me. It's certainly the most profound thing I've read about. Conciousness as a central part of the existence of the universe and the universe itself eventually becoming self aware through the spread of life through it. It's so hard to grasp these things especially when constrained to a human mind with the limits of what it can conceive. Even when you try and think about time it is beyond my grasp to get my head around it. You have this tiny tiny moment that is 'now' and everything else doesn't exist. Even the fact i could be placed here now with all these memories inserted in to my brain to make it feel like I've experienced things when for all I know I might not have, I might just be a simulation that has started now with all the memories built in. Because we can't really hold on to time it will be but the blink of an eye before I'm on my deathbed looking back at my life. People always say 'life's so short' but I'm guessing if we lived for a thousand years people would still say it as all we really have is this tiny 'now', the past isn't able to be re-experienced so it is just chemical records in your brain. I worry also because I know my life will be shorter than most peoples. I kind of feel jealous that I'm going to miss out on retirement in a country house with a proper fire and my books. All I get is snippets of time to myself to try and explore, in my own feeble way, why I exist. I remember reading a book once where someone was explaining some of the reasons why they didn't want kids and one of them was 'I would be creating death, as well as life', she thought the fact that she would be the architect of someones life, but also, their death was a major block for her. I can kinda understand that, I'm not saying i wish I hadn't come in to the world or anything as OTT as that but I certainly feel deep terror at the prospect of this experience ending at some point, I still haven't been able to reconcile myself with death. Yet i didn't exist only 30 years ago. Actually, almost to the day it will be 30 years since I was conceived. I simply cant imagine non existence yet such a short time ago I didn't exist. I like to believe in things like the anthropic principle as it has a degree of 'meaning' to it. Only a couple of years ago I was staunchest of the staunch when it came existence ending upon death but the more I read the less I'm convinced. Consciousness has a reason.
I had a dream the other night where I was walking down a glass corridor and outside was the most incredible sunset. I was suddenly overcome by the beauty of everything and just ran and ran down this corridor while smiling and laughing before I slid along the floor and for one moment everything seemed to make sense. It was a great dream.
Anyway, did anyone stay with me that long? thought not. good to get that out of the system, now, back to painting dublin by night |
