The end of the line. That's pretty final. The end of an event. An adventure. A day. An hour. Geeze - we have a multitude of ends every day. Finality abounds. Who woulda thunk. We are besieged by finality. The weight of the multitude of ends rests upon our weary countenance.
Living in a linear world means finality is inescapable. Things have a beginning, a middle and an end. There is order. There is structure. Processes follow known cycles - step by step progressions. Logic dictates. Spock is god. We stroll down the pathways of life until we reach absolute finality (that would be death). If you're of a religious bent that would be the absolute finality of this particular plane of existence. What happens next is wholly dependent upon your relationship with your god and her divine decrees. Good boys and girls go to heaven, bad boys and girls go to hell. An over simplification? Sure - but it suits this discussion. Maybe another day's topic will lend itself to a more serious discussion in that vain. I'll be sure to miss that one :-) Of course if you are a non-linear traveler down the yellow-brick road of life of life things don't quite work that way.
No straight lines make up my life;
And all my roads have bends;
There's no clear-cut beginnings;
And so far no dead-ends.
So what is finality really? Nothing more than the end. It's settled. Irrevocable. Complete. In law there can be no further appeals. Sounds suspiciously like death to me. Birth leads to life and life leads to death. We'll all get there. It's what we do on that yellow-brick road that matters. Follow your conscience - even if it's the conscience someone or some institution gave you. You chose it - you own it. As you circle the drain, make the best decisions you possibly can. If you think praying to some god or another will lead you down the correct path who am I to tell you you're wrong. And that sounds suspiciously final so we must be at the conclusion of this little ditty. No more time.
Now that's a send off. What do my LBC pals have to say on finality? Check them out - they're listed over there on the right.
Actually I find quite the opposite Shackman. There does not appear to be any finality any where. When we think it is all over, something crops up to revive the whole thing all over again. Relationships, business problems, domestic problems, economic problems, all seem to be conspiring to ensure that we are never free finally of any problem! I will instruct Ranjan to give me that fanfare as my farewell though he is likely to object to my being made into a common man.
ReplyDeleteDepends I suppose on one's definition of common - LOL. Restarting/resetting simply adds more events to become final - each as its own unique event in spite of its reappearance. So if there's no finality anywhere when a song ends what is it then? A long pause?? Discussing things in a purely philosophical manner certainly agrees with your posture - in philosophy there is no beginning and no end - there just is. Discussion. Never ending discussion. On and on. And on.
ReplyDeleteI actually wrote a similar sentence, questioning what really is finality. But I decided I was being too wordy, and so erased it and went in another direction. You, however, have finished the thought well. :)
ReplyDeleteIn Ireland, many of the roads have bends, bumps and potholes! Fall into the latter and you will never be heard of again! ;)
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me salute the magnificent music collection you gathered. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteFor me, the issue is that physical perception is a local, macro phenomenon and our personal logic and understanding is, of course, based upon our perception. Physics has already punched holes in our understanding and we approach the understanding of the mystics more closely as more is learned. One of the things they punch holes in is our concept of finality, for we find that more and more of our understandings confirm the circle rather than the line.
Even though your drive to Texas from California appeared to your senses as though you were traveling on a line, you were in fact traveling on the surface of a sphere. That "line" would have eventually led you back to California.
So it appears is the universe itself, time included. We are just too little to see it!
PS One of my favorite SF books is "Ringworld" in which an enormous ring has been created 93 million miles in radius with the sun at the center. The ring rotates at precisely the right rate to produce 1G of centrifugal force so that inhabitants on the inside of the ring surface simply have the sense of being on the ground. And the ring, being so huge, has what seems like a flat surface to any inhabitants on the inner rim.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there is no natural night under those circumstances, nor are there seasons, but you take what you get! I haven't read the story in years, but it seems like he deals with some of those issues in the storyline.
It was a great story and a great thought exercise!