So when a person dies, I sort of like to think that the energy contained within the corporeal form is released back into the universe. It is a breaking free of the shackles of this terribly slow life. And I like to think that the energy that was once a person spends some time as energy for a little while before it eventually slows down and becomes something physical again. Along the way, it probably gets mixed up with other energy, but that's cool. It means something new is formed from recycling old energy. Cosmic recycling, if you will.
I bring this up because I have been watching episodes of House lately, and he tends to berate anyone who is dying and expresses a belief in an afterlife. The character of House doesn't think an afterlife exists and he thinks anyone who does is ignorant and illogical. So I had to give it some thought. I was raised in the Christian Church - two of them actually - but I don't know that I subscribe to the idea of a place where all of these souls sit around on clouds and nobody fights about anything and everyone is just happy all of the time. If I am supposed to learn things in this lifetime and be a good person, it doesn't really feel like that great of a reward to still be me after I die. I've been me already, for quite some time. The exciting thing to have happen would be to try being someone or something else/more/better after I die. And don't give me that "you're the best version of you in Heaven" line. That's still not nearly as cool as becoming part of a cosmic thunderstorm or the first bacteria on a newly terra-formed planet. As much as I have railed against my physicality, to still look like this after I die, to still be essentially me for all eternity...that would be miserable. And I hate to admit it, but I like conflict. I need conflict. As an actor, I am programmed to look for it and find a way to fix it - this is what I love to do. And while it would be amazing to get to meet my relatives who passed before I was born or to be reunited with those who went before me, I'm kind of terrified that in an eternity of conflict-free bliss, I would run out of things to say and get bored. That probably sounds awful, right? I know it does. The thought of sitting contentedly on a cloud for eons just honestly isn't all that appealing to me. Though that may just be because I'm trapped within the confines of this mortal brain - I might actually really enjoy it when I get there.
So where does that leave me and my belief about the afterlife? I'm not sure. I can't know for certain that there is or there isn't one because I've never been. I can't know for sure if those from beyond have communicated with me or not because it could just be me remembering things I had forgotten. And were I to end up in the hospital right now with a cranky doctor telling me I had three days to live, I might suddenly find the idea of eternal cloud-sitting very comforting. But right here, right now, I find comfort in the thought that when I do die someday, my energy will be released to the universe to fall apart and rejoin with other energies to make something new. It's nice to think that death is because one's body has gained so much energy and momentum that it has to speed up beyond what a physical shape can hold. Then it becomes a beginning and not an end. Just something that happens, not something to be feared.
That said, I hope my own passing takes place a long time from now. I still have a lot of things to do here on the slow path before I'm ready to give up the combination of cosmic energies that is me.