After an alarming lack of book reading the last couple years (language learning takes a toll on that) I finally sat down, blocked off a few hours without the distraction of Iphones and work and driving to dodgeball and nagging girlfriend (just kidding!) to sit down and actually read a book. Reading a book is just like riding a bike for me: I don't desperately need to do it, but when I do, the same rewarding feelings come back quickly, the thrill of learning more about different characters, about wanting to flip the page and know what's next, to get closer to the climax and ending of the book. Unless it's like Freakonomics or something, where there's just a lot of good information thrown at the reader no matter what section of the book.
Anyway, I read a book called "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, author of "The Fault in Our Stars," one of the more famous books of the past 5 years. "Looking for Alaska" notably is about a boy who memorizes famous people's last words, especially those with significance. Impressive ones are Milliard Filmore, "the nourishment is palatable" after he had just been fed some soup, Another famous Civil War general said "they can't hit an elephant from this far aw....." before being shot and killed. Ulyssis S. Grant practically proclaimed "water" before dying of throat cancer. Some are really poignant, like Thomas Edison, "it's beautiful on the other side." Somewhat reassuring, that last one, as he was one of the most famous scientists in the world and maybe he knew something about the human afterlife that we don't? Recent quantum physicists just proved that our consciousness goes somewhere else after our death, so maybe it's the beautiful place that Edison was talking about?
I'd like to think that one day before I died, I could come up with something memorable as my final word? I gotta think that "I love you" and "Now I rest" or something along those lines would be up there, but something that really sums up one's life but also hints at something beyond. By that time, though, I imagine I won't be very creative, or have the energy to come up with anything......or just been resigned to the fate of death. Then there's the fantasy that before I die I come up with a diabolical riddle or some sort of treasure so that others would go on a treasure hunt before I die with secret clues and answers to questions only I would know or a password hidden in my favorite book somewhere, thus extending my influence upon the world even after death.......even though I wouldn't know how the hunt would go, thus ruining the whole experience. I just hope I'll have done everything I wanted to do in my life so as to be ready, or come to peace with something, or have some reassurance that there's something in the afterlife or it's not that painful.......anything to avoid the cowardly, yet realistic last word that I would utter if I knew I was gonna die very soon: "I'm scared."
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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