Many atheists I know claim they feel liberated by the fact that they do not believe in an afterlife. They claim it allows them to cherish the life they have and feel satisfied in the finality of death. While I agree that not believing in an afterlife does allow one to make every moment of one's life count and never take our time being alive for granted, I have a different outlook on mortality than what these atheists say. Furthermore, I think it's important to voice this outlook, because I often feel ostracized both from the religious and from the areligious because of my outlook. I suspect, though, that I am not alone in this persepctive....
Life to me is like this:
You find yourself on some type of a plane which seems built for long-term travel. You have no clue how you got there. But you have a full tank of fuel and find the plane on some apparent autopilot about to take off. You've never been on a plane before and you only have a vague clue what "taking off" might even mean, but soon you find yourself speeding ahead and it's a little disconcerting. But then you feel the lift under the wings of the plane and soon you are rising, rising to what you do not know. You swallow hard as you go through the changes in altitude and eventually you make your way through the clouds and level off. Your journey is born.
As you look around you see you are not alone. Vague voices you now recall having heard on your radio are speaking to you and you see the wings of other planes in your family, in formation beside you. Their voices sound reassuring. They seem to be showing you your way. You trust them instinctively and follow.
Soon all their jargon makes sense to you and you are quickly learning how to pilot on your own. Sometimes their instruction helps you; sometimes your observations help you; and sometimes you learn things by trial and error. But the feeling is exhilarating, as is the view around you. The sun reflects off the clouds whose shapes are constantly changing. Sometimes holes in the clouds reveals spectacular mountain peaks, oceans, rivers, or fields below. Sometimes the sun rises or sets and turns the clouds brilliant colors. Every sight you take in is new and gorgeous.
Eventually, you notice patterns develop in the weather and the sunrise and sunset, in the moon and stars above, and after some time you get the hang of it all and you hear less and less direct instruction from your more experienced family planes in the sky. Indeed, the other planes wander father and farther away, giving you more and more freedom of the sky. Soon you are on your own, independently piloting your own plane.
Somewhere in the back of your mind you know you only have a finite amount of fuel, but you're more focussed on the journey in the undertaking, and you know you have an ample supply left. You may chance to witness other planes. though, that, even with plenty of fuel end up caught in a storm or maybe try a tricky maneuver and crash to the ground. You might even experiment with some of these reckless moves yourself, but somehow you manage to keep your wits about you and not flirt with disaster too much. And somehow you are lucky enough that nothing as freakish as a lightning strike or bad storm has come your way and threatened your flight.
You sometimes find your independence exciting; sometimes lonesome; sometimes dull. But all in all, it is what it is and it's all you know. You sometimes contemplate what lies ahead. Maybe you even try to vaguely plan for it--at least in little bits anyway: perhaps the next hour or the next day. If you are lucky, you may find an attractive looking plane that comes your way. Your path flirts with the other plane's and perhaps you become a duo.
After some time with your cohort, you decide to beckon more planes of your own design from the earth to join you. You talk to them over the radio and figure out how to remotely launch them up into the sky. With your guidance you help them take off and soon they join you, protected near your wing, helped along with your radio and remote maneuvers... What a responsibility you now have! Other lives in your hands....
There's that fuel gauge again... Could it really be nearly half empty already? Where has all the time gone? But you distract yourself again watching your little family of planes in interacting formation, the newer ones testing out the ropes now and then, learning how to pilot for themselves.
Those planes you brought into the sky quickly start becoming more and more independent, and your fuel seems to be burning faster and faster. As you do from time to time, you reflect upon your situation. You've seen other planes crash and burn. You remember the planes that helped bring you into the sky. They are nearing the end of their fuel now. You know your time with them is limited.... And you know your own time is limited....
You visit your parent planes. They are happy to see you and the new ones you've brought into the sky. But the fuel keeps burning...
The flight is sometimes quite routine. You've seen that kind of cloud a thousand times now, flown over that landmark more times than you care to think of, and done countless repetitions of these maneuvers. Though it often feels a bit pointless, you also catch a glimmer of beauty that does not escape your attention. A flicker of light, the dazzle of the stars... And the planes you've brought to the sky, now independently flying, sometimes come to visit and make merry with you.
Some of your equipment may even have some pathological problems now, but nothing that seems to prevent the flight from proceeding. And the fuel gauge reads lower and lower. This last half of a tank has surely been burning faster than the first half. How could it be this depleted already? By now those planes that brought you up have long exhausted their supply and met their demise below. You've moved forward, for what else is there to do? Yet you know your fate is no different than theirs...
For thinking about these realities and accepting them at face value for their obvious inevitability, you've been met not with commiseration but with harsh words. You've heard some on their radios saying that people like you are the reason so many planes are led astray, because you won't accept on faith that after your fuel is exhausted and you apparently crash to the ground, you actually survive this aboard an invisible aircraft of grandiose design, beyond detection of our meager physical radar. And if you'd only just believe in this, you would be saved. It sounds beautiful--never to have to worry about an end to your journey. But try as you might you cannot make yourself believe this as much as you would like to. And despite the accusations that your lack of faith is leading you and other planes astray, you find that knowing your fuel will one day be exhausted makes you revel in each moment you have, and inspires you to help others see the beauty all around them and enjoy it while it lasts.
Yet despite this silver lining, you still see the cloud as being a cloud. The fuel as being the fuel. And the ground awaiting your demise as the ending to your journey. And the truth is... It is downright terrifying to know that all you know will come to an end. All you feel; all you see; all you experience. Over. You try to make the best of this realization in your every day actions. But it haunts you. It creeps in from time to time. In the quiet darkness of the night or the long shadows of the afternoon sun. You know as surely as the sun sets, so will your time on this, the flight of your life. There is no comfort in this thought, nor can you force yourself to believe something that to you seems nonsensical, just to give you some sort of relief to pondering your own mortality.
So you move forth again, sometimes going through the motions, sometimes realizing something profound, sometimes perfecting a better way to fly, and sometimes passing on a bit of your wisdom to those with more fuel in their tanks, hoping that in some small way a part of your influence, if not your plane, will go on long after you have fallen to the ground. And in these actions you reach a contemplative peace... That is, a peace that will last... at least until the next time you think too hard on that ever-shrinking supply of fuel...
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