God & Death

*As a notice, the following that you are going to read will be offensive to some people, especially Christians and some other religious devotees.

Many would have already known that I dislike people persisting to convert their friends or even strangers to be just like them. Sure they mean no harm and want to help, this kind of behaviour greatly disturbs me and I tend to pick a small argument with these people whenever they approached and went great length trying to recruit me. It is perfectly fine to ask me if I am interested, but some people are unable to comprehend my rejection to their offer. Again, I am not undermining your religion, but just how people behave. If you are already disgusted with what I have written so far, I suggest you navigate away from this blog for at least 3 months before I post new stuff and this post will be safely kept in the archives and not appearing on the home page.

This is not really a post actually, but I just want to share a particular section of a conversation between two characters in the book I am currently reading titled The Skull Beneath The Skin by the coveted suspense author P.D. James. Here goes:

Then she lifted her hands in an eloquent gesture of despair.

"Oh, don't you know? I thought George had told you. Death. That's what I'm afraid of. Just death. Stupid isn't it? I always have been - even when I was a young child. I don't remember when it began, but I knew the facts of death before I knew the facts of life. There never was a time when I didn't see the skull beneath the skin. Nothing traumatic happened to start it of. They didn't force me to look at my Nanny, dead in her coffin, nothing like that. And I was at school when Mummy died and it didn't mean anything. It isn't the death of other people. It isn't the fact of death. It's my death I'm afraid of ...(continues)...

I can't really describe the fear, what it's like, how terrible it is. It comes in a rhythm, wave after wave of panic sweeping over me, a kind of pain. It must be like giving birth, except that I'm not delivering life, it's death I have between my thighs. Sometimes I hold up my hand, like this, and look at it and think: Here it is, part of me. I can feel it with my other hand, and move it and warm it and smell it and paint its nails. And one day it will hang white and cold and unfeeling and useless and so shall I be all those things. And then I will rot. And I shall rot ... (continues) ... Now I've told you, and you can explain that I'm stupid and morbid and a coward. You can despise me."

Cordelia said, "I don't despise you."

"And it's no good saying that I ought to believe in God. I can't. And even if I could, it wouldn't help. Tolly got converted after Viccy died so I suppose she believes. But if someone told Tolly that she was going to die tomorrow she'd be just as unwilling to go. I've noticed that about the God people. They're just as frightened as the rest of us. They cling on just as long. They're supposed to have a heaven waiting but they're in no hurry to get there. Perhaps it's worse for them; judgement and hell and damnation. At least I'm only afraid of death. Isn't everyone? Aren't you?"

So that is the end of the conversation I want to share. How you want to interpret it is up to your imagination, but it sounds too true to me. Unless you have suicidal intentions, I can think of no other reason why you shouldn't be afraid of death, especially many of us still young and wanting, craving, to know more about this world. Unless you have done it all. Unless you have no regrets what-so-ever. Unless you have no more obligations to this world.

I personally feel this publicizes every one's inner thoughts about being alive, and death that inevitably follows. Who, in the right set of mind, can declare to the world that if tomorrow is the end of me, I will go as it comes without feeling unjust and unsatisfied? I can't.

It's up to you to agree, or contest what I have written.

One more message: if you think this world and life suck, think again if you're willing to let it go once and for all. I'm not asking you to kill yourself, that's just bringing miseries to people around you. If you think that there's still something to live for in this world - family, friends, knowledge, places, even being able to dream - the world is still a wonderful place to live in.

Cheers =D.