The idea

Last week, after Psych of Death and Dying Class, Donne Marshall gave me one of the best ideas I've ever had. At least, it was a great accumulation of a pile of ideas that my time in University has given me. I went to University with the sole purpose of wanting to be a writer. Ironically, I'm in the middle of a years-long writer's block. I haven't produced noteworthy things since YouthBuilders, and at that point, I was writing up to ten pages a day. So I've been praying for a good idea. I think this is it. At least, I got the "This is it" feeling that I rarely get, but when I do get it, I follow it with all I have.

So. The idea. (I contemplated not telling people the idea, but I need feedback on the idea so it can be buffered then polished. Just don't shoot it down.)

The topic in class was "Death and Religion". We were talking about different types of beliefs regarding death: whether nothing happens, or you're reincarnated, or there's a bodily resurrection, a spiritual embodiment, or your body "joins forces with the elements!"
Now, this is the class where my prof doesn't like me. This is because I ask questions about Catholic saints that are disproving all of his theories and ideas about death. I must annoy him or something. He must have taken years to come up with these theories, only to be shot down by some kid who knows a lot about Saints. This is what happened this time:
Prof: "Do you have ANOTHER question about incorruptables, or saints or something?"
Jessie: "Kind of."
*Class laughs*
Jessie: "So, in the canonization process, in order for a person to be considered for sainthood, two miracles have to take place attributed to the saint, AFTER their death. This suggest spiritual embodiment exists. Now, when the Dalai Lama dies, the other Lamas (yes, the visual for "Lamas" is really funny. That's the name for the monks, silly.) will go on a search for the reincarnated form of the Dalai Lama, and through prayer, and different processes, will choose the Dalai Lama when they believe they have found his reincarnated form. Does this mean that BOTH reincarnation and spiritual embodiment co-exist, at the same time?"
Prof: "... I don't know! Next question!"

After class, Donne and I got into a really good discussion about death. We were briefly interrupted by the creepy cat guy, who tried to ask me out again, but then we made it awkward until he left.
Donne was wondering why people take such a huge stock on the idea that there HAS to be life after death? Why people go to so much to "be good" in the hopes that they'll get to heaven, and contribute and deal with social pressures from that idea, or be unsatisfied with life. "What if this is all that there is?" she said. "And why can't people be satisfied with this being all there is? Even if at the point of death, if all that happens is that you lose consciousness, then one wouldn't even know the difference about the existence of heaven or not." - To which I replied, "If this is all there is, then there's a terrible unfairness to life. What about the people NOT born in a first-world country? It's awful to say to somebody who grew up in the worst, most impoverished conditions there are that this is all that there is, and all they have to hope for. And what about babies that are born and don't live? Stillborns and miscarriages? They don't get a chance to live, and that's all they can hope for with the idea that there is nothing after death. Human beings, unlike any creature ever created, were endowed with a sense of the eternal. We cannot conceive of the idea that before the year we were born we did not exist. It's impossible for me to imagine that before 1989, I did not exist, or before 1990, who you are, as a person, did not exist at all. We feel at the core of our being like we have always existed and will continue to always exist. So the thought that there's no life after death goes very deeply against an ingrained psychological phenomenon that we were all endowed with. If you were to tell people your idea about being satisfied with there being no life after death, people would get VERY uncomfortable with that, because it's impossible for us to conceive of a time where we did not exist."

We talked a bit more. She walked me to the bus stop. She was telling me she couldn't ascribe to any religion because she felt like so much of a hypocrite that she couldn't keep her own rules, let alone the religion's doctrines. "Thou shalt not kill, for instance. Who's to say that in the future, I wouldn't end up killing someone? If somebody were to attack and kill my family, I would probably end up killing that person. I can't even follow my own moral codes let alone a religious ideology. So I stay away from it, because I would be really bad at it."
(For the record, I go to the school, NOT with the intention of "evangelizing" people. I'm very bad at it, as well as, since I'm in a Religious Studies program, I find it hard to say to people why my religion is better than theirs when I'm learning about new religions, the psychological process behind religions, and religion's effect on he world, all the time. I have a lot of friends who aren't Christians, a lot of friends who are Christians, and strangely enough, only a small handful of friends who are practicing Roman Catholics like I am. I practice as much as I can.)

Here's the climax. I said to her, "Maybe, what death is, is a hope that we'll be released from the restrictions and pre-requisites of life. Even if we didn't grow up in terrible circumstances, which neither of us did, there still is a bunch of pre-requisites to living or having freedom."
"Like, you can HAVE freedom, only if you fulfill certain requirements."
"Yeah. If you want to travel, you're free to, but you have to live in a country that'll allow you to travel, have thousands of dollars, a valid passport, a valid visa, and the appropriate shots and vaccinations for the appropriate country."
"If you want to be rich, you can, but it helps if you're born into a rich family, or are born beautiful, or born with skills and intelligence that allow you to be rich. It also helps if you're born into a first-world country and have easy access to post-secondary education, like us."
"Yeah. There's pre-requisites to living."

Then she said it:

"Why do we operate on all of these pre-requisites and all of these restrictions that are inherently hurting us, rather than helping us? What if for just ONE DAY, everyone dropped all these restrictions. They stopped going to work because they realized that family is more important, or they stopped charging money for food, and billing people for everything that can be billed, and just gave it, because we're all human, and all good? Instead of supporting an inherently bad system, what if one day, we just... let go?"

The implications of that statement made my heart pound. One perfect day...

I could go on for pages about this, it filled me with excitement, and I don't know what to do with it. I wish time would give me a couple of hours, and wisdom would teach me how to use them well, so that when I did pick up that pen, it would be with a clear conscience that I let this idea fly.



I told this idea to Donald Miller. He's this well-known author from Portland, Oregon. He came to the University to give a talk, and I asked him about this. Unfortunately, I picked the wrong time to talk, and it took too long to explain this concept, and in the end, he didn't understand it at all. It was high on the list of awkward moments for me. I don't think it's at the top, but it's most certainly up there.