Post 6: Wisdom from a Cemetery, and Other Places

THEME: Death is not the end, but what you do now will affect you later.

A few days ago my parents took me, a family friend and her son 14 miles south of here to a cemetery in Coffeyville. They were looking at the graves of those who died as a result of a bank robbery decades, maybe a century ago when Kansas was still considered the wild wild west. And while they were enjoying the famous landmarks (which I didn't personally find to be all that exciting, but interesting nonetheless), my thinking was elsewhere.

As I often do when considering things, I look at the world from an atheist/agnostic viewpoint. I considered death and its finality. I imagined the tombstone of a friend of mine and what it might look like. Then I pictured my mother's, and my father's and finally my own.

"That's it?" I asked myself. We work our butts off for years on end and then we die and none of it matters. What good does it do that I enjoyed my pizza or that I was a good computer programmer? All I was doing is trying to accumulate enough money so I could live an easy life. But then I would die and that would be the end of it. In one instant, as my body shut down, everything I had done becomes irrelevant. Nothing matters. Nothing.

"Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

For some reason I always wind up at that verse. Ever since I moved to Kansas, that statement has found a strong truthfulness in my life. I labored for thirteen years in school - for what? The moment high school graduation ended, the number of A's I got on those tests became pointless. I could have had a total average that was 10-15 points lower than what I got and most colleges still would have accepted me. And in my daily battle with slight gluttony, I frequently think, "Why bother eating extra? I'm just going to get hungry again."

But I know that death isn't the end for me. There is a meaning for what I do. What I do now in this life won't just affect me in later years but also into eternity. I'm not working 17+ hours a week for no reason. I don't attend church every Sunday just to keep appearances up. There is a reason I've committed myself to higher education and why I want so badly to effectively use every second I have left on this earth and pour so much energy into my passions and the people I love.

When I was younger, death scared me. Now I'm not afraid. (Not to sound suicidal but I gladly await death, when I can get into Heaven and be happy forever.) Still, I'm often aware of my own mortality and the fact that yes I will one day die. I want to live for God and enjoy myself in the time that remains for me. Death is my motivator. Knowing that eventually I won't be able to do anything here in this life makes me work all the more harder.

Another thing this makes me realize is that what I do now will affect me in my later years, just as Solomon discovered. He led a wordly, materialistic life and in his final ones he found himself to be unsatisfied with life. He felt as though that time was wasted. As as youngster, I didn't like to brush my teeth. I put the blame on the way toothpaste tasted. Now I brush daily, but those years of not caring for them have become clear. My teeth are stained and somewhat sensitive. I don't smile with teeth showing for that reason. I know that what I do with money now is going to decide how I handle it when I'm older. Every second of the now has influence on the later.

So why, oh why, don't I let this fact really get into me and change how I act? There are times when it does, when I choose to look past the immediate and focus on the long-run. How am I going to come out given my current habits? I'm hooked on a game called Starfleet Commander and I plan on playing it for a long time, although in a few years it will probably lose the popularity it has and wither out of existence. So why continue to play it now?

Because it's fun! OK look, what are the most important things in my life right now? My faith, my work, and getting into college. But I have a whole lot of free time during the week and focusing exclusively on those three things would be downright exhausting. I play this game because it entertains me, it allows me to think and deal with real people. Yes eventually the game will lose steam and die out. But until then, I'm going to try and make it to the #1 position on its leaderboard!