WALKING ON THIN ICE

HEAVEN AIN’T GOTTA BE LAST

Whatcha reading?

“An article on climate change affecting billions through wars.”

We’re in a frigging disaster movie. And the price of admittance is our lives.

“Yeah, wouldn’t it be nice if there were an Afterlife? Losing my life wouldn’t seem so terrible if I could just have some continuity of consciousness afterwards, some kind of afterlife. Eternal peace.”

But who says the afterlife is peaceful? You know, you think about it. Let’s say there is an afterlife. After all, the body loses 21 grams when it dies. Some say that’s our master program. And it returns to the Great Databank in the Sky to be recycled.

OK, so now, you got two worlds, two existences. Living people on Earth, and wherever their master program goes when they die, the Spirit World. Now, there’s a problem here. People simplistically say, ‘Earth existence bad, Spirit World good.’ But we already know this isn’t true. A lot of folks insist there’re at least Three over there. Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. And it doesn’t matter. There’s either this One Existence: you’re born, you eat, you die. Or there’s more than one. And if there’s more than one, there’s probably more than just one more than one. There could be a whole elevator series of Life After Existence After Life After Existence.

Who knows. You might go from Earth to Hell to Purgatory to Heaven, and who knows what after that? Heaven ain’t gotta be last.

Now, my theory is each level on the Other Side is just a wee bit nicer. Because each one’s a test. This is all if you’re Good, of course. If you’re Bad, the Other Side’s gonna be worse. If you’re Good, the Other Side’s not quite as Bad. But even not quite as Bad still got Bad. You got flesh sharks here, you probably got Spirit Sharks there. You got slimy flesh politicians here, you have bloodsuckers there. It’s just spirit wounds rather than flesh wounds, and they’re gonna hurt just as friggin bad.

So the way I figure it, if you keep being Good, and you keep dying, you’re gonna keep being born into Bad. Until finally the Bad’s all gone, and you get Good.

At this point, you’re either so weary from getting this far just surviving the tests that you don’t give a shit, or you reach Eternal Peaceful Nirvana and you’re bored out of your gourd.

“So are you saying that Badness is interesting?”

That’s an interesting question. Yes and yes and no.

I mean, great actors always like to play the bad guy in the movies, cuz the bad guy gets to chew up more scenery and have more fun. Bad guys get the best lines. Better wardrobes. They usually get the girl for most of the movie until they have to give her back.

Bad guys have more fun. Bad guy movies and bad guy books and bad guy TV shows are more popular. So yes, it’s more fun to be the bad guy.

And humanity’s fascinated with badness to begin with. They stop and look at road kill. Slow down and sniff for blood at accidents. Will click on the most horrendous misery-bringing story.

If you saw two headlines, one said, ‘Boy Does Something Good’ or ‘Man Rips Mom’s Head Off and Stuffs Her Down Toilet’ you can guess which one’s gonna get more readers. I think people secretly yearn to be wild. And getting to watch or read about bad is their only outlet. It’s catharsis.

And bad eats up time and shows you what you’re made of. Just surviving this life, I can’t believe how much work it is. And when bad hits you, like your mother taking nine months to die, bad just builds and builds and builds. And you learn in what you do, who you are.

So bad makes time pass more quickly, just surviving.

Ultimately bad detracts you from good, and good is always deeper, richer, more rewarding. Probably better looking, too. There’s a beauty to good.

Weak ending. See, even this, the good ending is weak. Bad is more interesting.