Being

I've read a series of interesting posts on other blogs: one about the rareness of living with integrity; another about Martin Luther King Jr.; and one about different versions of 'eternity' or 'afterlife'.

For different reasons all provoked a similar response in me. How do I want to live my life? Who do I want to be in this life? What do I need to do in order to achieve that?

Then, on a more philosophical level the following invades my stream of consciousness...

1. I tend to believe in 'heaven in hell' insofar as its existence in this realm. The world we experience on a spiritual level equates to what we deserve. If I'm unsatisfied with that experience it is because I have failed to take on the responsibility to make it satisfactory. Mass movements have no power in themselves - power lies solely within the individual. To deny your own power to be who, how and what you want is to absolve yourself of responsibility. I have little, if any, sympathy for myself or others who fail to act in accordance with their conscience.

2. If, hypothetically, the fundamentalists have it right then their god will never be mine. I'd choose to join the free thinkers and souls of loose morality in the fires of hell any day. To condemn myself to an eternity of structured dogma and intolerance in the 'heaven' of the zealot would truly be eternal torture.

3. On a metaphysical level I am sure of my existence. The form it takes has little relevance. Let us for a moment subscribe to Descartes' "malicious demon" or similar... I shall suppose momentarily that I am simply a 'brain in a vat', that the 'world' is simply the result of fallacious stimuli. I am not now typing, I just believe I am. Nonetheless I still exist. There is a brain, there is a consciousness ("I think therefore I am"). Even within this Matrix-like version of reality I have some power over what I experience. I am not an NPC or automaton... though it's possible that everyone and everything else is. At its very least my life is an elaborate 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book.

Thus, I arrive here:

• The existence or otherwise of an afterlife is irrelevant. Both here and there I will experience what I deserve.
• Metaphysical considerations are largely irrelevant. The world may be 'real' or it may be 'virtual'. Either way I interact with it and have power over how I experience it.
• Ultimately the only imperative is that I be and act in a way that recognises both my personal power and my insignificance. I know nothing more than who and how I want to be.
• Consistency of thought and action is divine.