Ode to the Immortality Jellyfishes

“you say i have to believe in everything you say
and if i don't breathe just as you tell me to
then all of these pains that keep coming over me
are brought down my my ignorance and strengthened from my disbelief in you

so if i start to believe that what you say is true
then what does it mean? is all my searching through?
will all of your contradictions keep pounding me
or will i just forget about the reasons why i disbelieve in you?

well i don't believe in all the things you say
i guess that i can leave some things up as blank
and all of these small resentments i feel for you
are shadowed by hypocrisy which strengthens all my disbelief in you

don't tell me what to do"

-“a small resentment” - amk

Scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute found a jellyfish called the Turritopsis Nutricula that can replicate all of its own cells an infinite amount of times rendering it basically immortal. Yup, I said it. Freakin’ IMMORTAL!!! Now granted, spending eternity as a jellyfish may be a cruel joke played by Mother Nature, but DUDE! I would expect that the next twenty to thirty years will bring lots of research papers and dollars spent on figuring out how to translate this genetic oddity’s lucky stumble into the great eternal unknown and somehow jumble it up with human code so the rich and powerful can stay just as they are for centuries to come.

What exactly does this mean? It means that I for one do not want to live forever! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t look forward to dying. But I’m not afraid of it anymore either. I think most people are afraid of death because they are terrified of losing themselves into the unknown. And I can’t say that I blame them either. All I have ever known is being me, so I kinda like it.

Everyone has their own opinion about what happens after we die. Some say we go to Heaven and hang out partying in the clouds with all of our loved ones who came before us and other folks who believed in the same things. Did you know that you needed a belief ticket to get into the afterlife? I must have missed that meeting. Apparently if we don’t have that exact same belief ticket, death holds a completely different scenario for us. (Read up on your Dante if you need a more descriptive take on it.)

Some folks believe that we are reincarnated and keep coming back for another shot at life until we get it right. Of course we don’t come back as ourselves, we get shipped back as a Larry King or maybe even a jellyfish. Probably not a Turritopsis Nutricula though. Unless that’s the reward for getting it right!

What do I think happens to us after we die you ask? I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone who has ever died and come back to tell me what happened to them. For most scenarios to exist, you have to believe that they exist. You have to have faith. I think faith can be a beautiful thing sometimes. It can also be terrifying when manipulated by corrupt viewpoints in positions of power. That might be why I don’t personally subscribe to any organized version of it.

I would like to think that we as individuals go back into the collective unconsciousness. There, we share the experiences of our life and try to use that information to make the universe a better place. I could be wrong though. I have never thought that anyone’s beliefs on the subject of the afterlife were wrong. If it gets them up and adaming out of bed every day and it helps them to treat other people better as opposed to worse, why would I have a problem with them?

A lot of other people seem to have a problem with me though. I have never forced my beliefs (or lack thereof) on someone else. I remember riding on the bus in high school and this girl was reading her Bible. A bunch of kids started talking about it and I politely stayed out of the conversation. At least I tried to anyway. She eventually turned towards me, being the only senior year kid there, making me the oldest and asked “Are you right with the Lord?”

My answer, being a snarky young teenager was, “Probably not.”

Can of worms…OPEN!

She dove right in on that one. Apparently I was going to hell and there was nothing I could do about it. If I didn’t read her Bible and interpret it the exact same way that she did, I was a lost cause. I was done for.

“So even if I do good unto others in the same way you do, and I follow all of the same rules that you do, if I don’t read the same book and go to the same kind of church I am going to hell?” I asked when I was finally able to squeak a word in edgewise.

She slowed her breathing, I remember this very clearly, placed the Bible on her lap and leaned across the aisle toward me and answered, “Yes.”

I would love to say that this experience was the result of youthful exuberance and the adults I have encountered in my days have acted with more generosity and open mindedness. But alas, that way of thinking has popped up in front of me more often than not.

Now maybe it’s because my people have a strictly No Recruitment policy. You are either born one of us, or maybe you marry into the clan. I have never kept very close tabs on the subject. But I have never even considered telling another person that they were signed up for an eternity of pain and suffering because they don’t read the same books as me. By the way, I actually have read the same book as bus girl and I couldn’t find a statement in it anywhere that gives license to treat people that way.

Is it arrogance? Is it fear? Is it ignorance? I have had friends from many different backgrounds and we have had wonderful conversations about belief and faith. Never once was there any judgment. Maybe it’s because we were all still searching. Is that the key? To keep searching until the clock runs out and when we close our eyes the answers will finally be given? Or maybe they won’t be. That’s the scary part for a lot of people I guess. The not knowing drives them crazy.

Wow! Where did all this philosophical mumbo jumbo come from? Oh yeah, our new friend the immortal Turritopsis Nutricula. Maybe he’s got it right after all. He gets to go on year after year, decade after decade and not have to worry about arguing his way in and out of the loopholes of the unknown. He just bobs up and down swimming there looking for food. Forever. Or at least until us pesky humans figure out that he tastes good on a rainbow roll…

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/guest_bloggers/26/the-world-s-only-immortal-animal.html

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