Phlebotomic is a blog experiment that seeks to gather multiple perspectives around a common prompt, which is provided weekly.

Last week's prompt was "Beauty"...

This week's prompt is "Path"...

02 February 2009

My Greatest Fear: Eternity


"I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank Piña Coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day.Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over..."
-Phil Connors, Groundhog Day

In homage to the movie Groundhog Day on this February the 2nd, I will share that my greatest fear is not snakes, nor failing to live a fulfilled life on earth, or even death for that matter, rather I fear the sweet promise of eternal paradise that I would be so lucky to be granted. Is there something wrong with me? I actually fear the Virgin Islands episode recurring as much as I would being stuck in cold Punxsutawney. I am accustomed to a beginning and end, so I have trouble trying to comprehend an eternal sequence or loop. I actually get physically anxious just thinking about it. Even if I lived in a world filled with love and compassion, I know that the sweet is never as sweet without the sour.  How could I appreciate sweet moments of friendship and love without conflict, or a relaxing evening after a long day of work, or a beautiful sunrise without following the long darkness of night. Will God have enough variation for me in this eternity? I know that sounds selfish, but as a human I strive for something new...even if it isn't better than what I have right now. 

In the movie, Groundhog Day, Phil finally awakens to a new day after "perfecting" his Groundhog Day by helping others and growing as a person. However, when he finally awakens, he is still ecstatic about a new day upon him. He just made the most out of Feb. 2nd he possibly could, yet he was so excited to begin a different day. That's what I worry about. I don't worry about tomorrow (or life after death) being positive/negative, I worry about it being different. I worry about the eternal return. But I pray and hope that just as I can't comprehend eternity, I can't comprehend God's love and what he has in store for me. I wait anxiously and optimistically. 

Some thoughts from Nietzsche...

What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest loneness, and say: "This life which you live and have lived, must be lived again by you, and innumerable times more. And mere will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh— everything unspeakably small and great in your life—must come again to you, and in the same sequence and series__" Would you not throw your self down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him: "Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!" [The Gay Science (1882), p. 341 (passage translated in Danto 1965, p. 210).]

2 comments:

  1. I like this. Guttural.

    If we are limited in understanding and temporally based, wouldn’t this compel us to truly “be present” in each moment, knowing we only have so many left…?

    I think this link may have the video in it where David Wilcox talks about being present and in the moment… -Kyle

    http://theburkholders.blogspot.com/2008/05/david-wilcox-on-storms-of-life.html

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  2. If you know something is temporary why put so much effort in to it and when you know there is something better available, such as eternity, doesn't that enforce the previous question that much more?

    Living in the moment is meant to be something of a challenge and if it weren't wouldn't that take away from the significance of what "Living in the moment" signifies?

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