More Of The Same?

[Questing Beast]

Sometimes, more often and lasting longer, I experience feelings of ennui that seem to extend into life beyond the grave. Even my 'satiable imagination quails at the prospect of learning and discovering, FOREVER. What could there possibly be "out there" that would arrest my immortal attention, or engage me in a thirst or hunger for more? That angst and discontent seems mirrored in the here and now, when I realize yet again how little I actually know about anything, yet that realization does not galvanize me into further study, or awaken a desire to know more. Instead, what I feel is a lassitude that seems based on a feeling of, "Why bother? It will just end up being more of the same ol' same ol', and I already know enough about THAT to know it does not matter. 'There is nothing new under the sun'. And that surely means any sun." Etc. and etc.

 

I imagine being immortal, literally having the capacity to zip all over the world of humans and visit anywhere and "collect" anything, be anything, have the power to build, own and control anything, etc and etc. Just like "God". And it's all too much of the same thing.

 

So instead, I come "here", and while "being there", I can shut out all of that infinite, eternal stuff, and pretend to be a simple mortal human who FORGETS, who has a leaky brain that refuses to hold onto anything for very long or very well. And that insular (albeit temporary) existence is a relief from the terrible light of BEING GOD. It feels "cozy" and small and intimate and pleasantly "dark", like curling up in a closet of old stored clothes that belonged to dead ancestors, and just sitting way back against a far wall and taking a long, old nap....

[thesometimesaint]

I'm going to take the first couple of millions of years and visit the universe.

[Robert F. Smith]

Sometimes, more often and lasting longer, I experience feelings of ennui that seem to extend into life beyond the grave. Even my 'satiable imagination quails at the prospect of learning and discovering, FOREVER. What could there possibly be "out there" that would arrest my immortal attention, or engage me in a thirst or hunger for more? That angst and discontent seems mirrored in the here and now, when I realize yet again how little I actually know about anything, yet that realization does not galvanize me into further study, or awaken a desire to know more. Instead, what I feel is a lassitude that seems based on a feeling of, "Why bother? It will just end up being more of the same ol' same ol', and I already know enough about THAT to know it does not matter. 'There is nothing new under the sun'. And that surely means any sun." Etc. and etc.

 

I imagine being immortal, literally having the capacity to zip all over the world of humans and visit anywhere and "collect" anything, be anything, have the power to build, own and control anything, etc and etc. Just like "God". And it's all too much of the same thing.

 

So instead, I come "here", and while "being there", I can shut out all of that infinite, eternal stuff, and pretend to be a simple mortal human who FORGETS, who has a leaky brain that refuses to hold onto anything for very long or very well. And that insular (albeit temporary) existence is a relief from the terrible light of BEING GOD. It feels "cozy" and small and intimate and pleasantly "dark", like curling up in a closet of old stored clothes that belonged to dead ancestors, and just sitting way back against a far wall and taking a long, old nap....

I'd say, Beast, that you have seasonal affective disorder (SAD), except that this isn't winter, when most of that occurs.  Or you may be going through the male version of menopause, and maybe on the verge of your second childhood.  At that point, many men trade in their current wife for a new model, and buy a nice muscle-car, sports car.

 

Still another possibility is that you are suffering the angst that comes from the realization that God is dead, and that Death is god, and that none of it matters -- the existentialist dilemma, with no way out.

 

Thus, stories about life after life, and various kingdoms of glory become meaningless.  No better than pie in the sky, and Walter Mitty fantasy.

 

However, if the LDS version of the afterlife is true, then even those who end up as ministering angels, along with the denizens of terrestrial and telestial worlds would be living in unspeakably glorious conditions, with eternal bodies in an infinite multiverse.  Their minds would be capable of brilliant thought capacities.  For those in the highest glory, infinite progeny and creation of an infinite variety of worlds and solar systems would certainly occupy a lot of attention, just as multiplication is central to Earth-life.  Why do you imagine that our glorified bodies would be subject to the very same human problems of chemical imabalances in the brain?  Why would a selfless God, a God who weeps, and whose glory is to bring to pass the glory and eternal life of man, spend his time wallowing in the mire of vanity and boredom?  Of course, he would not.

[Kenngo1969]

Your mileage may vary (it probably will, I recognize that), but I believe that you are essentially a spiritual being who has been sent here to have a mortal experience rather than a mortal being who has been sent here to have occasional spiritual experiences.  I believe (as incomprehensible as this is to the mortal mind) that you are co-eternal with God and that you have always existed in some form.  Because of the veil through which we passed before embarking on our journey through this mortal sphere, we don't remember what we were able to learn in a premortal existence that spanned, for all intents and purposes, aeons and aeons.  What might it be like to have that knowledge restored to us?  (Alas, the best we can do is to catch occasional glimpses of that perspective.)  Again, your mileage probably varies, but for me, the ennui springs from being what Eliza R. Snow called "a stranger here" in mortality, "who feel that he ha wandered from a more exalted sphere."

 

And quite frankly, I'm not sure how to get around the fact that "mortality sucks."  It seems that the harder I try to fix that condition, the more futile my efforts are.  One of the few things that stops me from saying, "To heck with this" and chucking it all is the idea that I am, at my core, an immortal being, and as incomprehensible and frustrating as mortality sometimes seems, it's just the second act in a three-act play.  The only thing I can suggest is that you seek transcendence wherever you can find it.  Again, your mileage will vary, but for me, one of those places is the Temple.

 

I wish you well.

[Duncan]

 I want to know what happened with all these mysteries that remain unsolved, like Amelia Earhart, Hoffa's body, who was DB Cooper and how the heck the Americans won Gold medal at the 1980 hockey game for the Olympics

Edited September 6, 2013 by Duncan

[volgadon]

how the heck the Americans won Gold medal at the 1980 hockey game for the Olympics

 

That was divine judgement passed on Canada.

[The Nehor]

It is not "more of the same". We are in essence quarantined in a prison with only faint beams of sunlight coming in. As C.S.Lewis used to say: Real life hasn't started yet.

[Questing Beast]

I'd say, Beast, that you have seasonal affective disorder (SAD), except that this isn't winter, when most of that occurs.  Or you may be going through the male version of menopause, and maybe on the verge of your second childhood.  At that point, many men trade in their current wife for a new model, and buy a nice muscle-car, sports car.

 

Still another possibility is that you are suffering the angst that comes from the realization that God is dead, and that Death is god, and that none of it matters -- the existentialist dilemma, with no way out.

 

Thus, stories about life after life, and various kingdoms of glory become meaningless.  No better than pie in the sky, and Walter Mitty fantasy.

 

However, if the LDS version of the afterlife is true, then even those who end up as ministering angels, along with the denizens of terrestrial and telestial worlds would be living in unspeakably glorious conditions, with eternal bodies in an infinite multiverse.  Their minds would be capable of brilliant thought capacities.  For those in the highest glory, infinite progeny and creation of an infinite variety of worlds and solar systems would certainly occupy a lot of attention, just as multiplication is central to Earth-life.  Why do you imagine that our glorified bodies would be subject to the very same human problems of chemical imabalances in the brain?  Why would a selfless God, a God who weeps, and whose glory is to bring to pass the glory and eternal life of man, spend his time wallowing in the mire of vanity and boredom?  Of course, he would not.

It doesn't matter which "version of the afterlife" we are talking about. They are all alike imaginative. And boredom cannot transcend "God", thus my question about being immortal inside the world of humans being seen as "more of the same". Perhaps Carl Sagan faced this down the best, by having his alien tell Dr Arroway in Contact: "See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other."

Edited September 8, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Questing Beast]

Your mileage may vary (it probably will, I recognize that), but I believe that you are essentially a spiritual being who has been sent here to have a mortal experience rather than a mortal being who has been sent here to have occasional spiritual experiences.  I believe (as incomprehensible as this is to the mortal mind) that you are co-eternal with God and that you have always existed in some form.  Because of the veil through which we passed before embarking on our journey through this mortal sphere, we don't remember what we were able to learn in a premortal existence that spanned, for all intents and purposes, aeons and aeons.  What might it be like to have that knowledge restored to us?  (Alas, the best we can do is to catch occasional glimpses of that perspective.)  Again, your mileage probably varies, but for me, the ennui springs from being what Eliza R. Snow called "a stranger here" in mortality, "who feel that he ha wandered from a more exalted sphere."

 

And quite frankly, I'm not sure how to get around the fact that "mortality sucks."  It seems that the harder I try to fix that condition, the more futile my efforts are.  One of the few things that stops me from saying, "To heck with this" and chucking it all is the idea that I am, at my core, an immortal being, and as incomprehensible and frustrating as mortality sometimes seems, it's just the second act in a three-act play.  The only thing I can suggest is that you seek transcendence wherever you can find it.  Again, your mileage will vary, but for me, one of those places is the Temple.

 

I wish you well.

Same back to you.

 

I never found the temple anything but boring. Home is more spiritual and peace generating than anywhere outside of it. Also, home can close in at times and feel like a cushy confinement. That gets hard.

 

Existence is far more than a "three act play"!

 

In the sense that I originate with or from "God", yes, we have always existed. But spacetime regulates the world of humans, which is what we are, and "God" to us is a glorious human. Imagination makes "God" out to be infinitely more than human, and maybe we are more than we appear to be while doing this mortality thing....

[Questing Beast]

 I want to know what happened with all these mysteries that remain unsolved, like Amelia Earhart, Hoffa's body, who was DB Cooper and how the heck the Americans won Gold medal at the 1980 hockey game for the Olympics

Well, at least you will get what you want, since your wants are "so deliciously low"....

[Questing Beast]

It is not "more of the same". We are in essence quarantined in a prison with only faint beams of sunlight coming in. As C.S.Lewis used to say: Real life hasn't started yet.

Not sure I go with any of that. My current pet notion is that mortality is only a way to "zone out" for immortals, during which we experience adversity and opposition like anyone does through reading a good adventure book and IDing with particular characters. We ARE the characters. Then we are done and "wake up" as whatever we always are as immortals. Perhaps "human", but probably not exclusively so, since that is a much smaller concept than we are capable of imagining....

[strappinglad]

 I for one will be very disappointed if, upon arrival in the eternal world, I discover that we are forever locked in a Star Wars type episode with good vs evil and a universal "force" . My fantasy is to make a beeline to the sun and see if Bro Brigham was right . 

 

Then I am going to spend a lot of time watching reruns of " How it Actually Happened " , the universes longest running soap.

Edited September 8, 2013 by strappinglad

[Questing Beast]

Good luck with that!...

[The Nehor]

Not sure I go with any of that. My current pet notion is that mortality is only a way to "zone out" for immortals, during which we experience adversity and opposition like anyone does through reading a good adventure book and IDing with particular characters. We ARE the characters. Then we are done and "wake up" as whatever we always are as immortals. Perhaps "human", but probably not exclusively so, since that is a much smaller concept than we are capable of imagining....

I reject this on the grounds that as a mortal I can come up,with a better adventure story then this. I refuse to believe that as an immortal Imhave an even more limited imagination.

[Questing Beast]

I reject this on the grounds that as a mortal I can come up,with a better adventure story then this. I refuse to believe that as an immortal Imhave an even more limited imagination.

I have an answer to that one: our 'satiable imaginations ARE our immortal minds thinking. There isn't such a thing as a "mortal imagination".

 

As for this mortal world, Earth, being inferior to what you can come up with, that's part of the "perfect joke": we are apparently (not literally) stuck here, where our minds soar to far greater heights than we ever experience as mortals, making us yearn for more than we seem to be. Immortals just love playing in self-imposed, limited venues, like role-playing in reverse. We already know every kind of so-called super natural power and venue, the very stuff that mortals call "imagination". Such a wide view of the universe is in dramatic contrast to the incredibly myopic pov of a puny mortal on a planet in one of billions of galaxies, wondering what truth is. That is really something to experience, inconceivable, really, unless we are actually doing it....

[savedbygrace]

I'm going to take the first couple of millions of years and visit the universe.

will there be such a thing as a million years? Will time be measurable?