Great News!

[temporaryreality]

 Yesterday I ventured out onto one of our nation's busiest highways and happened to spot a billboard that can allay everyone's fears. It said:

Covid-19 vaccines help
prevent death.

Folks, this is amazing - now, while in the act of driving (itself one of the riskiest endeavors of daily life), we can be assured that being injected with a magic potion can reduce the risk of driving-caused death significantly. Happy day! And we'll be protected from falls from ladders, nosocomial (and antibiotic-resistant) infections, heart attacks, and cancer. Wow!

Oh, that's not what they mean?

I don't know, sure sounds like they're digging deep into the box of fears to come up with some way to encourage the courageous to backpedal. I'm not sure this strategy of conflating vixenation with immortality is going to make thinking people suddenly agree with "expert" opinions, though.

I did laugh out loud, though, and they do say that laughter is the best medicine, so there's that.

Comments

[sdi]

Someday, perhaps, I'll understand why everyone is so hellbent on preventing death. Do you really want to be in this awful body forever?

[temporaryreality]

Well, when your culture teaches you that this is all there is before The Void, I guess that's a natural response...?

It reminds me of the sentiment so many express about high school being the "best time of your life" and how that horrified me because I HATED high school. To me that just represented a pathetic lack of imagination and a weird morose nostalgia that I just couldn't share.

Our culture is collectively attached to a kind of pubescent period. Downright weird.

I love believing that there's So.Much.More. It puts all *this* (gestures vaguely around) in perspective.

[sdi]

But if "all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief"—and, frankly, I think the Kohelet is being generous—isn't The Void to be preferred to life?

The only reason I can see to soldier on is for What Comes After: after all, what is there for us here?

(Sorry, I'll stop! I'm being morbid. In my defense, it's a gloomy day here!)

[temporaryreality]

That way lies danger too, no? I tend to be less than amused by "only the afterlife matters" because of how it excuses bad behavior and bad relationship with the myriad beings. I'm beginning to think that whatever it is that's here that makes it worthwhile is that which emanates the Divine (however imperfectly or partially). There have been times where the only thing that kept me going was light shining through leaves, and though I know whatever we can experience here can only be imperfect and partial, it's also uniquely alive in a way that can only be experienced by a fellow traveler through life.

Or something.

I'm also always more than happy to blame the weather. :)

[sdi]

Well, I was talking about motivations, not actions! Clearly, if one's actions in life feed into effects in the afterlife, then neglecting the one simply causes loss in the other. Jesus talked about "storing up treasures in heaven," right? Clearly you need to acquire those treasures somehow!

("Somehow" usually seems to mean "doing the dishes," but maybe that's just my Capricorn half talking.)

[temporaryreality]

haha, my husband insists he loves to wash the dishes as part of his practice, so you might be onto something there.