Just Imagine for Today
In our world today, we have so many weights and burdens. The freedom of innocence and ignorance was stolen from us by the concept of Eve and the tree of knowledge. Awareness brings “all the things.” In most of our world today we are hyperconnected. These connections of communication create the tethers which inform us, but they also separate us.
The more we believe we know, the more we inform ourselves in our own world view. These could be false narratives but the information from the outside supports them. They could be motivated reasoning because we want to believe something is what we think it is or want it to be.
In all of this swirl of information, knowledge, non-stop broadcasting and receiving chatter, we are carried away by the waves. The rip tide currents of knowledge bring us out to sea, and we do get lost. Lost from ourselves, from our center and from our true position on the beach which is where we should be. It isn’t happiness that we feel when we are pulled out to sea by a current, it is fear. Some can ride it and move parallel to the beach, but some will get lost out in the sea and never come home.
In this world of knowledge what if we were told that we could wear a small band around our wrists which would light up on the day that we were going to die?
Today is the Day
You wake up in the morning and you missed the sunrise. It is a cold blustery day, dark outside with a hint of rain on the way. You can smell the moisture in the air and feel the cold in your bones. Your joints ache from an old injury, your back is sore from a small twist yesterday. You roll around the bed a bit thinking that you don’t want to get up, it is just between that warm bed and chilly air barrier where you realize, if you get up, you’ll feel cold. You are still tired and could use that feeling of snuggling up in the blanket. It could be time for a cup of coffee as you can smell it in the air, the machine went off an hour ago and beeped to let you know it was done. That aroma is like a mermaid’s siren song calling you into the kitchen.
You’ve committed to your next move and pull the covers off feeling the cold chill and goosebumps from the cool air. That warm blanket is still calling you, but the coffee has won out. You swing your legs off the bed and don’t pay much attention to the subtle flash of light on your wrist.
Looking out the windows with your arms outstretched, you notice the light. Is this real? Is this what I think it is? Something I thought impossible, improbable, and not in the realm of belief. It must be wrong; it must not be true. The bargaining begins.
For those aware or believing they are at the end of their days, the experience of “knowing” is life altering. Every scent, color, experience, and moment become something more. It has been written about over and again, ignored by youth and ignorance. It is ignored because many of us don’t want to think about it. We don’t want to plan for it. For many it comes unexpectedly, and they don’t even have an opportunity to stop and smell the proverbial roses.
Nothing to see here, just remain distracted. Nothing to see here, just remain angry. Nothing to see here, just go on with your life thinking there is always tomorrow.
If we started our day as if today was our first and last day, what would we do differently? Would we be kind? Would we be bold and courageous? Would we do good things or bad?
In the scenario I am proposing, there wouldn’t be a lot of time. It would be difficult to get on a plane immediately and travel to a place that you always wanted to go but didn’t. It would be difficult to realize many of your dreams if you hadn’t already acted on them.
For many, today is the day but they don’t know. They have no light flashing to tell them. It wouldn’t be a warning anyway; it would be a notification. All the things they might feel and do for whatever time they had left in that day would be a gift or a curse.
For 189,757 people yesterday, some portion of this group had no knowledge of their impending death. According to live death statistics, yesterday’s life expectancy was on average 73 years old for the world.
For those who died yesterday, all the ills of the world fell silent. Every “cause” they may have taken up or fought for took a back seat to what life prioritized as their next.
The things that separate us, create anger, angst, and war, are far less powerful than the things we all have in common.
We all beat billions of other versions of us from sperm to egg.
We were all born into this world.
All of us will die.
What we choose to do between the spaces and how we choose to act is at least partly in most of our hands.
The only difference in the scenario raised this morning for many is they don’t have a bracelet of light; they only have the expectation of indefinite time.
Fin*
The Cohenization Project 