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raybearI've been thinking about dying lately....
That was the opening line of the monologue I learned in my acting worshop at the ripe old age of 15. It came from William Hoffman's play "As Is" which I read in a collection of AIDS plays that I checked out from the library several times a year, almost as many times as the hardback version of What's Eating Gilbert Grape (way before it got made into a movie). I worked a lot on developing the piece, not just to learn to memorize, but working on character and getting inside the head of one and how to show that on the stage. Our instructor was a pretty talented guy, but he was an even better teacher. When I later auditioned for a play, I had selected a new monologue to perform, but afterwards James asked me if I could do the other one too. I was nervous, but got into his headspace and the words rolled off my tongue like they were my own. I was selected for the acting troupe.
My obsession with my own death came before my teenage years though. I remember when I was maybe seven or eight years old -- not immediately after the death of my grandfather, but it was definitely afterwards -- and one night I laid awake in bed trying to imagine what it felt like to not have consciousness. I was trying to will my brain into non-existence, just for a moment, so I would know what it would feel like and whether it hurt or was upsetting. I thought about the idea of sleeping and never waking up and how when I'm sleeping I'm not aware of sleeping. What's it like to have permanent non-awareness of oneself? This internal dialogue induced possibly one of my first panic attacks, and I remember rushing downstairs to find my parents, choking back tears and every inch of my skin itching and feeling uncomfortable, like I couldn't settle back into my own existence. Then when I got to the doorway and saw my parents watching Bob Newhart on television, I froze and didn't go to them immediately. I didn't know how. I wasn't sure how to explain what my thoughts were, especially knowing my mom would either think I was crazy for trying to imagine what it felt like to be dead, or I would get patted on the head and told that I should think of such things since I was only a child. I knew then about self-censorship and what one should or shouldn't think and talk about. I also knew that I could be seen as weird for not just going along and pretending that I would always wake up every morning, at least until I turn 80. I didn't want to pretend, I wanted to know NOW. Never mind the fact that plenty of people die at any age, including children.
I think I finally made my presence known and my mom asked me what's wrong while trying to console me. I'm pretty sure I lied and said I had a nightmare. I remember her acting disbelieving, as if she suspected I just wanted to stay up late and watch tv with them. So she said it was okay, just a nightmare, and sent me back to bed -- walking back up the stairs to the lonely darkness of my bedroom was not exactly reassuring.
At some point in high school I stopped believing in hell. At least as far as it being a destination after judgment. For me hell was sort of the absense of hope and love and people could be in hell while living or dead, but you could choose to not live there at anytime. And not just after reciting the prayer on the back of a conversion pamphlet, but whenever you embraced the love and grace and forgiveness of god/God. I didn't really have a clear idea of heaven, didn't really go for the images of streets paved with gold and being reunited with lost loved ones. That idea is so obviously created by an older adult, because as a kid, the idea of dying and the only people I know in heaven are my great aunts and uncles I barely met and my grandmother I lost when I was two years old wasn't exactly appealing. Who wants to hang out with old people for all of eternity when you're 10?
I'm an agnostic when it comes to the afterlife. Not only do I believe that I don't know how it works, I don't believe anyone can truly know. But I embrace this buddhist idea that I can't remember how things were before I was born (or hell, before the age of three, and even that awareness of consciousness was sporadic), so there's no reason to believe I need to know how things will be after I die. I'll go back to the place I was before, whatever/wherever/however it will be.
In college, I didn't really worry about the possibility of my death -- I was more obsessed with other people dying. After all, I would be the one left behind, I'm the one that had to continue living without them and feeling the loss. I just assumed that moving on in death meant not feeling loss for your life -- you were moving on to bigger and better things and a big "see ya!" to those left on earth. Or to put it another way, in death you take the love with you and don't need to cling to actual person. But when I thought about the possiblity of knowing my own death was coming in the next twenty-four hours, I imagined myself spending a whole day writing a letter to every person I left behind, telling them how much they meant to me and how much I loved them and cherished them, to help them with dealing with the loss of me.
Currently I don't have any strong ideas about my own death. And whenever I hear about the loss of someone, I still don't think about what my own death will feel like -- it seems selfish and indulgent, for some reason. I think more about those left behind and less about where the person passed to.
I have strong feelings that might be premonitions or might be past-life memories. Or they might be emotional experiences I'm pulling out of the atmosphere and into my own brain (i.e. I'm living something that happened to someone solely by absorbing the thought energy they put out into the universe). I have strong memory-type feelings about being incarcerated, though I've never been and don't feel like I'm going to be. I've never been hit by a car except to have a bumper tap my leg, but sometimes I swear I know exactly what it would feel like to have my legs ripped out from under me by a big block of steel traveling at thirty miles per hour. And for a long time I've had the feeling I won't live much past the age of forty-five, possibly coming to a quick and violent end. I chalk most of these things up to my overactive imagination. It hardly seems worth it to dwell, since what can I do to prevent any of these things? What can I do to prevent most anything in my life?
I genuinely believe that through enlightenment and an open heart and mind, one can experience in five minutes everything you can spend an entire lifetime experiencing. Actual amount of time is irrelevant. This doesn't mean I know how be present enough to achieve this at any given moment -- I'm not fully enlightened. Last time I checked I'm not even sure I was partially. And it's possible that I've had my five minutes, that I know what I want enternity to feel like. Yet I woke up again this morning and was given more chances. I don't care if I deserve them or not -- I will take them all.
That was the opening line of the monologue I learned in my acting worshop at the ripe old age of 15. It came from William Hoffman's play "As Is" which I read in a collection of AIDS plays that I checked out from the library several times a year, almost as many times as the hardback version of What's Eating Gilbert Grape (way before it got made into a movie). I worked a lot on developing the piece, not just to learn to memorize, but working on character and getting inside the head of one and how to show that on the stage. Our instructor was a pretty talented guy, but he was an even better teacher. When I later auditioned for a play, I had selected a new monologue to perform, but afterwards James asked me if I could do the other one too. I was nervous, but got into his headspace and the words rolled off my tongue like they were my own. I was selected for the acting troupe.
My obsession with my own death came before my teenage years though. I remember when I was maybe seven or eight years old -- not immediately after the death of my grandfather, but it was definitely afterwards -- and one night I laid awake in bed trying to imagine what it felt like to not have consciousness. I was trying to will my brain into non-existence, just for a moment, so I would know what it would feel like and whether it hurt or was upsetting. I thought about the idea of sleeping and never waking up and how when I'm sleeping I'm not aware of sleeping. What's it like to have permanent non-awareness of oneself? This internal dialogue induced possibly one of my first panic attacks, and I remember rushing downstairs to find my parents, choking back tears and every inch of my skin itching and feeling uncomfortable, like I couldn't settle back into my own existence. Then when I got to the doorway and saw my parents watching Bob Newhart on television, I froze and didn't go to them immediately. I didn't know how. I wasn't sure how to explain what my thoughts were, especially knowing my mom would either think I was crazy for trying to imagine what it felt like to be dead, or I would get patted on the head and told that I should think of such things since I was only a child. I knew then about self-censorship and what one should or shouldn't think and talk about. I also knew that I could be seen as weird for not just going along and pretending that I would always wake up every morning, at least until I turn 80. I didn't want to pretend, I wanted to know NOW. Never mind the fact that plenty of people die at any age, including children.
I think I finally made my presence known and my mom asked me what's wrong while trying to console me. I'm pretty sure I lied and said I had a nightmare. I remember her acting disbelieving, as if she suspected I just wanted to stay up late and watch tv with them. So she said it was okay, just a nightmare, and sent me back to bed -- walking back up the stairs to the lonely darkness of my bedroom was not exactly reassuring.
At some point in high school I stopped believing in hell. At least as far as it being a destination after judgment. For me hell was sort of the absense of hope and love and people could be in hell while living or dead, but you could choose to not live there at anytime. And not just after reciting the prayer on the back of a conversion pamphlet, but whenever you embraced the love and grace and forgiveness of god/God. I didn't really have a clear idea of heaven, didn't really go for the images of streets paved with gold and being reunited with lost loved ones. That idea is so obviously created by an older adult, because as a kid, the idea of dying and the only people I know in heaven are my great aunts and uncles I barely met and my grandmother I lost when I was two years old wasn't exactly appealing. Who wants to hang out with old people for all of eternity when you're 10?
I'm an agnostic when it comes to the afterlife. Not only do I believe that I don't know how it works, I don't believe anyone can truly know. But I embrace this buddhist idea that I can't remember how things were before I was born (or hell, before the age of three, and even that awareness of consciousness was sporadic), so there's no reason to believe I need to know how things will be after I die. I'll go back to the place I was before, whatever/wherever/however it will be.
In college, I didn't really worry about the possibility of my death -- I was more obsessed with other people dying. After all, I would be the one left behind, I'm the one that had to continue living without them and feeling the loss. I just assumed that moving on in death meant not feeling loss for your life -- you were moving on to bigger and better things and a big "see ya!" to those left on earth. Or to put it another way, in death you take the love with you and don't need to cling to actual person. But when I thought about the possiblity of knowing my own death was coming in the next twenty-four hours, I imagined myself spending a whole day writing a letter to every person I left behind, telling them how much they meant to me and how much I loved them and cherished them, to help them with dealing with the loss of me.
Currently I don't have any strong ideas about my own death. And whenever I hear about the loss of someone, I still don't think about what my own death will feel like -- it seems selfish and indulgent, for some reason. I think more about those left behind and less about where the person passed to.
I have strong feelings that might be premonitions or might be past-life memories. Or they might be emotional experiences I'm pulling out of the atmosphere and into my own brain (i.e. I'm living something that happened to someone solely by absorbing the thought energy they put out into the universe). I have strong memory-type feelings about being incarcerated, though I've never been and don't feel like I'm going to be. I've never been hit by a car except to have a bumper tap my leg, but sometimes I swear I know exactly what it would feel like to have my legs ripped out from under me by a big block of steel traveling at thirty miles per hour. And for a long time I've had the feeling I won't live much past the age of forty-five, possibly coming to a quick and violent end. I chalk most of these things up to my overactive imagination. It hardly seems worth it to dwell, since what can I do to prevent any of these things? What can I do to prevent most anything in my life?
I genuinely believe that through enlightenment and an open heart and mind, one can experience in five minutes everything you can spend an entire lifetime experiencing. Actual amount of time is irrelevant. This doesn't mean I know how be present enough to achieve this at any given moment -- I'm not fully enlightened. Last time I checked I'm not even sure I was partially. And it's possible that I've had my five minutes, that I know what I want enternity to feel like. Yet I woke up again this morning and was given more chances. I don't care if I deserve them or not -- I will take them all.
