Life: A Series of Problems?

This blog is not from or in any way associated with me.
It is a blog of one of my friends on Myspace.
I think it's pretty cool and has some truth to it.
Check it out:

What is Life exactly? This is a very difficult question. But what I wonder about is, what is it really all about? What does it mean? I remember watching this one movie a long time ago called "Manic" that had Don Cheadle in it. You can find the whole movie on YouTube if you haven't seen it. All his movies are great, at least that's my opinion. Anyway, the movie took place in a mental detention center for troubled teens with various psychological problems. Don Cheadle played as the head psychologist and in one of his group sessions with the teens he asked the group what a particular disturbing dream meant that one of them had had where in it the kid kept stabbing a copy of himself only for that copy to just constantly heal back up get back up running away from the original. And the guy just keeps going after him and stabbing him, only for the copy of himself to get right back up each time and run away. And I'll never forget what a few of the kids said that it might mean. One of them said it means that nothing in life ever changes. And another girl said,

"Well when you have a problem, you fix it. Then you get another problem, and you fix that. And another problem, and you fix that..."

"It's true." said the kid who's dream it was. "The same crap just keeps happening over and over and then you die."

This maybe sounds like a morbid and depressing outlook on life, but you have to admit, for many people in this world, it is pretty true. Life just seems like a series of problems that you have to overcome. Think about it. You have to go to work, which is a problem for most people because they hate their jobs, but they also need their jobs in order to pay for all the necessary comforts of living in this society like, paying the rent, utilities, cable, internet, car note, food, etc.

So going to work is an inevitable problem if its something you dislike. The problem is going to work and doing a boring job for 8 straight hours. Once your shift is over and you go home, the problem is temporarily fixed. Here's another one. You're driving in your car and realize you're low on fuel. So that's the problem and in order to fix it you need to stop at a gas station, spend money for gas, which is yet another problem, and if you live in a cold state like here in Michigan, or Chicago or somewhere else in the midwest, you have to stand out in the cold and pump gas. Which is yet another problem added on. Once you're done pumping gas, the problem is fixed--temporarily.

And then unexpected things in life always seem to happen too like for me 2 weeks ago, it was my car that got broken into. The problems? Couldn't lock my driver's side door, leaving my car even more vulnerable to theft, paying extra money to fix an extreme inconvenience that someone else caused, having to reburn my music cds, and the list goes on. All those problems are now fixed, but you get what I mean? Everything we do seems to be a series of problems we're trying to fix. And what is it all leading up to? What are we all hoping for?

A break, a vacation, peace of mind, basically, we all want true freedom. And with true freedom brings true happiness. I often wonder how this can be achieved. But even if I was free from all problems, then what would I do then? Would not having problems and things to overcome cause life to lose some of its meaning? If so, then that would create yet another problem that we would seek to fix.

Do we humans really live to overcome problems until we die? It sure doesn't seem like a fun way to live, but perhaps it's necessary. If we were on vacation all the time, if we never had any trouble at all, what would we have to look forward to? It's like eternal life. Sounds cool right? But if you actually attained it, what would you have to look forward to after living for thousands, maybe even millions of years? After having seen everything there is to see, what would you do? Would you then try to create something new? This brings about another question I have; one about God. If it is true that He created us, then perhaps this is the reason we exist?

Life and even the natural occurence of death, which all life must succumb to, is yet another problem humans seek to overcome. The human ego wishes itself to never stop existing, therefore, we continue to desire true freedom which also means surpassing the laws of nature and living forever. So what have humans done since the beginning of Time? Make up various notions of an afterlife in order to attain the peace of mind that our Consciousness truly won't cease to exist after our physical bodies are rendered dead by the laws of Life.

Being raised a Christian all my life, I often wonder if Heaven is real or even God for that matter. I believe that there is a God who created us, but perhaps maybe people read too much into His involvement in our daily lives. Why would He take the time to wake up every single person everyday? I think it's more like, He created our bodies to run automatically, to replenish and re-energize itself overnight during a cycle that must take place each day. And this process, sleep, runs on a time schedule, all programmed by our brains. And the people that die? Well, that's life, and all life must end, even if it is before its prime. But that's easy for me to say, because I'm healthy and have never lost anyone really close to me before other than my great-grandfather. And when that happened, I understood. It's the way of life and eventually, it must fade away.

But the thing that bugs me so much about Christianity and other religions is that some people tend to blame every problem that comes their way on "the devil." I mean, elderly women in black churches are notorious for this sort of thing. They blame their chronic back pain and arthritis on the devil, they blame their shortage of money on the devil. Everything is of the devil. Funny how when they were much younger, having sex with every guy that came their way and partying all night wasn't of "the devil." Hello, logic train. Back pain and arthritis? Not the devil, it's called getting old. Shortage of money? Also not the devil, it's called, the US economy is currently in crises and money is tight--for everybody, unless you're Bill Gates. But this blaming every problem on the devil is how alot of people deal. It's an escape from the true reality of things. Not to say he doesn't exist, well...I'm a little caught between religion and logic right now and still figuring things out myself.

I am so tired of being religious period. So many people are getting killed over differences of religion and it makes me wonder if the world would be better without it. But I suppose without religion, people might lose hope, many might even lose their morality as maybe religion and the fear of going to hell is the only thing keeping them from becoming a serial rapist or a killer or something. Religion to people is equivalent to Santa Claus to children. People have their children believe in something like that so a child has hope for something, so a child can be good. And what happens if you're good? You get a reward. From Santa, it's presents. From God, it's Heaven and eternal life. Think about it, there's something to this. But I'm religious so what does this mean for me? Who is God, where is He? Where is Heaven? Does it lie in some realm we can't see? Is there an afterlife? Or am I deluding myself? Once again, I have begun to disconnect further from myself, but I am the same in my Mind, I've always had these thoughts ever since I began questioning my religion as a teenager. I just want to live my life without the stress of religion and just, well...live!

Well, I don't have any answers to any of this, only thoughts on these complex matters dealing with the phenomenon of Life and Death. I don't know where we came from or where we're going. I can only believe that God created us, but I don't have any proof of that and it remains a mystery. I'm not so sure anymore if there's an afterlife at all. If I was God and created humans, I probably wouldn't bother giving them an afterlife and would move on to something else seeing as how we've totally screwed up the world and all. If there is an afterlife, cool. Although I think I may be the only Christian who's afraid of going to Heaven and living forever. I'd like it if this world could just keep on going the way it is, and when I die I can become a spirit or something and watch over people. But that's what my ego craves, to keep on existing and to see how the world and these people continue to live; to see the changes that man will create; to see their cause of eventual extinction.

If there really is nothing after death and we only rot in the grave, I'm fine with that; I accept death for what it is. It would be like the moment you fall asleep. You won't remember anything or miss your own Consciousness. Your ego will no longer crave life because it won't exist anymore. Can you remember the exact moment you fell asleep last night? Probably not. And when you woke up today and hadn't dreamed, how do you know you were sleeping other than your memories of getting into bed last night? We can only assume that we were asleep, but unless someone was there video taping us sleeping, we don't truly know if we were sleeping. What if we were awake, but just forgot those memories? That's how death will be, as if in a forgotten slumber, only there's no guarantee you'll wake up ever again. So I guess if you never wake up from death, then that slumber could have never been forgotten in the first place.

But for right now, I want to find meaning and truth before I'm old and feeble. I want to discover new things and expand my Consciousness. If I don't die from an accident or something, I have at least 45 years left to live--hopefully I'll live longer than age 70, but not if I still have this Suppression of the Self. But still, absolutely nothing is guaranteed. I could suddenly die tomorrow for no apparent reason at all. I know that my life and everyone else's will eventually fade away into nothing. So I have to make something of it now...

Wow, not as enlightening as I was hoping. Also, it doesn't rank on the cool meter for me, but I've read a lot of other philosophical works.

Everyone has their own opinions ;]
This guy is my hero.