How do you know if you are even alive at all? Let me try to break it down. What is life? From what I understand life is a cooperation of matter and energy. But how is this different from… fire?,… stones? Dirt? Volcanoes and hurricanes? Or dust on your table? ...... Some would say some level of consciousness is a clear indication of life. However, I wonder… does bacteria have a conscience? Does a weed? Perhaps. I can’t say one way or the other for sure.

So, if life is a blending of energy and matter, but we don’t know how to separate that from other blends of matter and energy. Is it not plausible that life is a human concept? Like 12:00PM or 3:00AM.

Consider.

Animals may have a concept of death. But do they have a concept of life? I doubt it. At least for most animals and plants. Although I do not pretend to be a biology professor.

So let’s try something else.

Another approach may be, to consider instead of a trait, a goal as something that defines life. All life seems to strive to continue living and to reproduce with a few exceptions mind you. Interesting that we are the most intelligent form of life that we know of, yet there are those of us who choose to return to death of their own free will.

But I digress.

I went into this concept searching for an answer. Some memory, experience or connection that I could point at as concrete evidence and say “THIS!, THIS IS HOW I KNOW I AM ALIVE!” A mother, a friend, a passion, a desire, a loss, an understanding.... But… the truth is.. the more I think about it the more I consider the possibility death as a place we have all come from, and will return to someday, is it really that much of a jump to say that we are actually still there, right now in this moment, and that actually I have been looking at death the wrong way this whole time? As something separate, as somewhere I am not. Has anyone ever considered that death is not a departure for this world, but an ever present home we all live in? I am genuinely curious. If you have, please leave a comment.

Death has a morbid, dark sensation to it for many. Absolutely terrifying for many. Some I would wager never stop to give it a second thought until the reminder is forced onto them by the loss of someone they know or by some first hand experience they get.

I always thought it was curious though. Not in the way that I want to see blood and guts, or that I want to hang out In a graveyard. I don't have an interest in dead bodies and I am not romantically drawn to it.

I think instead I have viewed it as something that is so utterly abstract to what I am now that no words can really describe it. But why not?

If life is a glass full of water, isn’t death a glass without water?

I think that is the general school of thought among most people. That death is an absence of something.

Absence of existence.

Absence of suffering.

Absence of color and vibrancy.

Absence of consciousness.

But what if death is not the amount of water in the glass. But is rather the glass itself. The air that fills it in the absence of water. The table the glass sits on. And the hand that picked up the glass to drink the water? What if life IS death, or at least a part of it. I feel like it would fit the picture better. Look into the vastness of our perceivable universe.

Do we see life beyond our planet? No.

Do we see death? Yes.

Do we see life on our planet? Yes

Do we see death? Yes.

There is more death than life. It surrounds us everywhere, it gave birth to us and it will inevitably greet us all eventually.

I don’t have the answers, so I won’t pretend I do.

These are just my musings The genuine curiosities of one of our existences greatest mysteries and the willingness to consider that maybe, I was wrong about it all this time. Just maybe life as we know it, is just a part of death. Maybe just a single part of many.

What are your thoughts? What are your feelings?

Are you scared? Curious? Do you think it is a salvation, a damnation, or something in between? Do you feel death is empty and life is full? Will you see the people you care about there? Will you understand everything there? Will you simply fade into the universe? As one of my favourite lines from a movie states “Like tears in the rain”

Thank you for reading.

Just some passing thoughts by

A travelling Strawberry.