Tuesday 5 June 2012

Ponderings on existence

SHELPAK. I remember my science teacher, Mr Goodman, telling me about energy in its different forms and abbreviating it SHELPAK - Sound, Heat, Electricity, Light, Potential, Atomic and Kinetic. I also remember him telling us that energy in all of its forms cannot be destroyed, only converted into different forms, ie; the electricity used to power a TV is turned into light and sound.

I don't claim to be a scientific expert and my knowledge of this is limited to my memory of a science class fifteen years ago, but thinking about SHELPAK makes me think about my mortality.

I am Agnostic. That means that I believe in something higher than us, call it God if you will, but I don't believe in an organised religion or what they tell us God is. I think about death all the time. Grim, I know, but there is something in my brain that keeps me up at night thinking about the conflicting ideas of those with faith and those without. Those with faith will have you believe that there is a Heaven for those that have lived a good life once it has ended. Sounds good to me, though I am sceptical about where this assumption originates from, which then makes me think of the Atheist point of view which is; when you are dead, you are dead. End of. Lights out. Non-existence. And this scares me. Complete oblivion for the rest of time, not conscious of anything. A never ending sleep of dreamless darkness. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing. Not only would I feel no pain, but I would be completely unaware of the pain of others. But I don't mind a little bit of pain, it reminds you that you are alive and that is what it is all about really. Not wanting to let go of life. Living life for all it is worth, because if it really is as short as the atheists will have us believe, then surely we should grab it by the scruff of the neck and fucking well live it!

Another thing that bothers me, if the Atheists have it right at least, is that it isn't fair. I'm going to sound like a whiny little bitch here or a hippy, but it just doesn't seem right to me that a child can be born into pain and misery and live a short, agonising life because of the country that he or she is born in, whilst on the other side of the world a child is born into wealth and will never have to work a day in their pampered life. It doesn't seem right. Surely there should be some balance.

On the other hand, if there is a God, who am I to question the grand plan, if there really is one. Just because God created us, does he have a hand in all that we do, all that we are, how we live, everything? Maybe the length of our lives or the amount of suffering we go through determines how big our house is on the other side?

I don't know what to think, or what to believe!

So then I go back to SHELPAK and being told that energy, in all of its forms, cannot be destroyed. And what are we if not big old sacks of biological energy. We have Electric impulses that work our brains, we are warm blooded, we create sound, we use Kinetic energy every second of our lives, surely when we die that energy goes somewhere? Maybe the Potential energy is stored in our cells, but when we break down does our energy disperse into the Earth? I like that idea, becoming one with the planet, a billion souls converging into the centre of the Earth and erupting out of its volcanoes, rolling into the sea, evaporating into the clouds and being rained down onto the ground. Maybe I won't be aware of it. Maybe I won't be sentient, but if I have my way when I die someone will plant a Horse Chestnut Tree on top of my grave and perhaps I will help some kid to win in a Conker fight.

Anyway, I've got to go. I've got a life to go live.

M X


2 comments:

  1. So if electric energy is converted to sound (in a TV or radio) and the sound energy is dispersed (in the form of waves, then surely the energy dissipates to nothing, otherwise we'd be able to hear shit going on for miles! Maybe thats what life is, life energy goes on, dissipating slowly until its all gone?

    Now I'M depressed ;)

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    Replies
    1. As far as I am aware, energy cannot be destroyed, only converted. So I suppose it would become Potential Energy. But the interwebs would tell you better than me.

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