BS: An after life?

Subject: BS: An after life?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:13 AM

Spotted this on an FC link http://www.ashesintoglass.co.uk/?gclid=CIexw-KG6J8CFZBb4wodWXGlGw

so when you die, you can have your remains made into a lasting keepsake for your loved ones!

Now that's what I call entrepreneurism!!

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:20 AM

You can also be encased in a man made diamond.
I prefer Soylent Green, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:36 AM

Soylent Green? Yummy!

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:36 AM

SINS, not 'encased'--they cook you down and turn you into a diamond.
'Soylent Green': you can say 'eat me' in your will, and really mean it!.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:43 AM

John. I've eaten at your house. Are you trying to tell me something?

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: beeliner
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:44 AM

This could spawn a whole new thread about honored and unhonored last requests.

W. C. Fields - establishment of a home in his name for orphaned white children - unhonored.

Roy Rogers - to be stuffed and mounted on the previously stuffed Trigger - unhonored.

Clayton Moore - to be buried in his Lone Ranger mask - unhonored.

Bela Lugosi - to be buried in his Dracula cape - honored.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:07 PM

Ted Williams is still waiting....

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:15 PM

Somebody told Jeremy Bentham to get stuffed and he took them at their word:

Jeremy Bentham, stuffed

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:21 PM

I see no reason to have my identity trapped in a material form...

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:41 PM

Wouldn't it kind of interesting to come back and visit your former body, LH?    (No. I don't think so. Hmmmm But maybe...)

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:49 PM

About as interesting as sniffing around a cold fireplace full of old ashes.


A

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 12:50 PM

What Amos said...

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 01:20 PM

The reason I thought "maybe" is what if one were able to find the history of the auld body? Might learn some lessons for a legup in the current life. (?)

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 01:20 PM

LH says.......I see no reason to have my identity trapped in a material form...

Neither can anyone else but I hope you can return as the true Hawk and live high above the Crazy Horse carving where you can shit daily on the web's most exciting webcam.

I understand that the late Major Tom was trapped in the identity of a rug worn by William Shatner and pissed on by the great Wizard, his own self, Cheech.   Cheech had to stop by and evacuate his bladder after nailing Winona Ryder.

Much Love,

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: John Hardly
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:08 PM

A touching blog entry

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:22 PM

lovely story John.

I want my ashes sprinkled over my daughter's grave. If Hopewell City Cemetery won't permit that then my ashes interred above her, will do.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:26 PM

Read the small print, Jeri. They don't turn you into a diamond. They encase some of your ashes in a the matrix for a man made diamond. Not much differnece if all you are is ashes. Assuming you don't come back.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:29 PM

Ebb:

Recovering the knowing one had during a lifetime is possible without dragging through the ashes. It tends to be obscured because (a) it is no longer brought forward by your present context and (b) it is associated with an identity other than your current physical identity and (c) the loss of a whole identity with all its connections and belongings can be traumatic enough to be blacked out to avoid re-experiencing loss. All these can be worked around on a gradual basis.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:57 PM

A few years ago,a wealthy,land-owning "Field Sports" enthusiast,on going to the Happy Hunting Ground, had his ashes loaded into a cannon,and,in front of a large audience, his Earthly remains were fired from the terrace of his country house into a nearby copse from which he was wont to flush out, and terminate,pheasants.
         It was somehow rather satisfying and comforting to think that this final act may have provided some small measure of digestive relief,in the form of gizzard grit,for those survivors of his former sporting endeavours !

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:57 PM

hmmmmm...

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 02:59 PM

Then again, maybe we just die and are no more.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:03 PM

But Mary...that's not 'interesting'. Speculation about nothingness only interests folks like ME!

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:30 PM

Ya' know Bill, Sartre explored nothingness but it was a different nothing than the nothing I was expecting so although I found Sartre full of much of something, for me the best representation of nothing came from the monstrous somethings filling the book which made it a complete nothing......much like this post and many others around this place.

Maybe it was just me though but I admit that when I read, "Consciousness is a being such that in its being, its being is in question insofar as this being implies a being other than itself," I lost all consciousness myself........................


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:40 PM

"Then again, maybe we just die and are no more."

If that's true, then I'll be spared the utter tedium of listening to statements like that after I'm dead. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:47 PM

I went to a seance, Little Hawk, and I communed with the spirit of Sartre, and suggested he look you up when you arrive 'there'. It should provide a few aeons of fun.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: gnu
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:49 PM

When ya get old, life sucks and then ya die. And, why would you want to come back and do that all over again?

Fuck the after life. Live the before death.

If ya can.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 04:16 PM

From: Little Hawk - PM
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:40 PM

"Then again, maybe we just die and are no more."

If that's true, then I'll be spared the utter tedium of listening to statements like that after I'm dead. ;-D


Often the truth is tedious and boring.
M

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 04:24 PM

Sartre would be a long way down the list of people I would want to look up when I "arrive", Bill. ;-) A loooooooooong way. First I would look up those (both people and animals) whom I have really loved, but not seen in some time. Then I would look up those whose ideas (and ideals) really deeply interest me, and those who can teach me something new. After that...I might eventually get to Jean-Paul Sartre somewhere way down the line or he might get to me. Hard to say, really.

As for living the "before death", as gnu advises, I think that's an excellent idea. ;-D The problem with a lot of people who go into what they term "spirituality" is that their basic underlying subconscious impulse is a desire to escape from the unpleasant demands and difficulties of this embodied life. They want to avoid it somehow. That's an error in thinking, in my opinion. It's resistance to present realities in the vague hope of escaping to something better that attracts them to the spiritual path. I know that's one of the things that initially attracted me to it. The best thing to do with present realities, however, is appreciate them to the fullest and deal with them with much gusto, not attempt to deny or avoid them in some way by mentally separating yourself from them.

Now, Bill, here's what I think. It isn't a question of "arriving" anywhere, because we are already there. We HAVE arrived. We were never "not there". We are in the midst of life right now...intimately...at present...and always will be as far as I'm concerned. For me, that is as true before birth and before death as it is afterward. I don't believe there's anything but life, and we are already there in it. We're just manifesting right now in a particular physical form we've become familiar with, that's all. You notice how that form is inexorably changing before our eyes? We're all getting "older". Presently the form of life we are familiar with inhabiting now will cease and pass away, but life itself will not cease, it will continue in trillions of new forms, and we will still be inextricably a part of it. But not in our present form.

I won't necessarily call you "BillD" farther on from here, because "BillD" is just a tiny fragment of who you really are (in my opinion).

You don't know who I am. I don't know who you are either. But I do know this...we are both life itself, manifesting briefly in a temporary form called "human". The temporary form is interesting, and can be fun, but it doesn't particulary matter in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 04:37 PM

The Truth is NEVER tedious and boring, SINSULL. It is something that people desire with utter fervency at all times, and everyone seeks it wherever they can, however they can, but in their own fashion. Your specific fashion of seeking it may bore me, yes, but the truth itself does not.

Any spiritual thing, ideal, or discipline is extremely usefull to me IF it enables me to live life more fully and joyfully RIGHT NOW in this bodily existence.

I'm not looking for distant rewards in some hypothetical future nor am I looking to please some distant deity or follow some set of "rules". I'm looking to improve the present experience of reality which I am in. Everything spiritual I study is aimed at that result.

There are no rules. There are only some very general guidelines toward positive behaviours...but those guidelines must remain flexible, and they will be subject to exceptions now and then, because of the infinite variety of changing conditions in life. This requires a person to be flexible and to think creatively, not to cling dogmatically to sets of rules that have been handed down from some higher "authority".

It's a form of subtlety that both secular law and religious law are incapable of grasping or dealing with, because both are based on laying down a set of rules. A robot can follow a set of pre-arranged rules, and so can an idiot. We need to rise higher than being mere robots. We need to go way beyond just blindly following rules. Then we will be truly alive.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 05:11 PM

OK, Little Hawk...that's sure a 'pretty' scenario. If nothing else, it's a gentle attitude...and there's much to commend that.

As to "briefly in a temporary form called "human". Well, I suppose that true, even if we find there are no other forms.

For whatever reason, I don't, as you know, speculate on arcane metaphysical possibilities. Don't guess it makes much difference unless one's speculations begin impinging on others.

I may disagree with your 'grand view' of it all, but you don't twist arms... *grin*

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 05:59 PM

"Don't guess it makes much difference unless one's speculations begin impinging on others."

Exactly! ;-) That's why I think it's really just fine that there are many different forms of personal belief in this world, and there always will be.

What scares me is anyone who insists that there MUST be one and only one "right" set of beliefs. Such people are either pests (who may arrive knocking on your door now and then)...or else they are downright dangerous. It depends on the nature of the power structure they're serving...

Fortunately, we Winona-Ryder worshippers are relatively rare and completely harmless, and we don't congregate in groups. At least, not that I know of. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:10 PM

When the doctors have taken what the need for transplant, etc., and when the medical school is finished with my dead body, I want to be cremated, put in dime bags and given to my friends who will make small donations to a charity of their choice (as long as that charity does not include right-of-center organizations).

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:24 PM

I am a strong believer in graves or columbaria. I have found it very comforting to have somewhere to go to commemorate my dead family members.

Clearly I'm not the only one who appreciates a "place" to commemorate -- witness the growth of roadside shrines marking the place where someone bought it in a car crash. I'm willing to bet those people scattered the ashes and now find they need that spacetime focal point after all.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:32 PM

A focal point is certainly a good thing for many of those who wish to remember loved ones who have passed on. It could be in a traditional graveyard, it could just be outdoors somewhere like the roadside shrines, or it could be in your own house in the form of some kind of small shrine, photographs, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Ed T
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:36 PM

The ones to the left look like dildos.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:37 PM

I can see your points of view. I also think that when my 'memory' is dead, it's time to leave it all behind. I don't really feel I was ever meant for this place, anyway. (Ain't complainin', just sayin'!)

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:43 PM

Well, yes, when your memory is dead, it will be left behind, by definition. Nobody will remember you. It's all left behind. This seems tautological. What am I missing?

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:45 PM

If I did enough that someone wanted to commemorate me, a plaque on the wall would do fine. I do not want to take up any real estate.
There are places, like N. Orleans, where ground is so valuable that folks rent vaults for 'X' many years, then someone else gets it.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 07:47 PM

"What am I missing?"

Nothing. It wasn't a statement I wanted to argue. Just a statement.

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 09:34 PM

The deadness of memory is not a function of the event itself but f the owner's processing that event.

We all have a threshold beyond which we will black out memory from access. But blacking it out occurs after it is recorded, and if the attitude toward the memory changes it can be brought back to the surface because the individual is up to viewing it. You could say he moved his threshold.

As the old song says, "Death is a distant friend" when life gets too burdensome. But going out fully facing the music --and perhaps even enjoying the changes in tempo--is a lot more attractive an option than going out screaming "Stop the music!!!" :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: mousethief
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 09:48 PM

I was thinking, Amos, that beyond that, a person's memory is dead when anybody who knew them is dead. That's sort of a ne plus ultra of remembrance of a person.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: An after life?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 09:50 PM

"I was thinking, Amos, that beyond that, a person's memory is dead when anybody who knew them is dead."

That's what I meant, MT. Thanks.