In my life at the present moment, my dad is battling with stage four lung cancer, the doctors have given him less than 12 months to live, and that is with treatment.. if we are lucky. Dealing with this and this being a constant in my life, the thought that is at the front of my mind constantly is "what happens when we die, what if its nothing, if its nothing, there's no one there to be afraid, but that makes it so terrifying to think about now, but it wouldn't be at all terrifying if nothing happens when you die because you won't know or feel anything, but that makes it all the more terrifying in the now," and this inner monologue is running in my head on a constant repeat. I don't want to hear about God's promise of life after death. I don't. I have the people in my life that I could ask about that and they would tell me so many things about God's promises, that's great. However, I don't want to hear it. With all of this in my life right now, the last thing I want is other people telling me what is what, with everyone saying different things. I am at this point in my mind where nothing that anyone has to say matters. I need to work through things in my own head, in my own way.
I may come out of this a Christian, and I hope I do, it's how I was raised and it is all that I know. Although I don't want to be a believer unless I am sure that that is what I believe, and at this present moment, I don't know. The way that I see it is that there has to be a reason for our lives, its almost impossible to think that there is not a purpose behind all the pain and suffering that we feel emotionally. If we were just an accident of statistics in the universe, why do we have such complex thoughts and emotions? Why am I able to ponder the probability of existence and the life after? The most terrifying questions to ask are... Why? What happens after? Is this all for nothing?
These questions terrify me to the core of my being, and before all of this with my dad, I would just ponder it for a second, and then bury it in the depths of my mind. When that was a possibility it was easy to sit there and believe in Jesus and God and the Bible, because I never truly sat and delved into these thoughts and the more and more questions that would follow in succession in my mind. Now, with death being something that is so dangerously close to home, and is an imminent and unavoidable reality in my life. I can't stop these questions from playing on repeat in my head. So many things about the human existence make almost too much sense for it to just be a coincidence of the universe. While other things make absolutely no sense what so ever, which makes you think that there is no way that there could be some all knowing being behind the scenes with a huge heart and unlimited power.
The hugest problem that I have in working through this is that there is no research that I can sit here and do that would give me any answers. I can explore religions sure, I can see which one fits myself the best, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, any of them. The problem there is that at that point I would just be seeking something to believe, I would just be looking for something to make me less afraid, I would not be practicing a religion that I truly believe in. This is awful. There is no answer, and will never be an answer until I die. Then I will know. Or I won't because I just won't exist, which scares me again, everything that I think about leads me back to this paradox of fear and the absence of it that makes it even more terrifying. All of this, everything that is going on in my life right now, none of it makes sense, and it all makes too much sense.
It leaves me with nothing to say, in an endless cycle of fearful thoughts and on the verge of tears with every experience. It leaves me with nothing to say, except
I don't know....
