before the first breath

Quite often I think about people that I know who have died, and sometimes when I do this the thoughts are easier to bear than others.....

I almost always think about the finality of death, boy that’s it, I’m not going to see that person again ever, not again, and if I do it’s not going to be in the way that I might want to think, you know, not like seeing them return home from a trip. Though sometimes I ponder the possibility of such a reunion, I wish I didn’t. I tell myself I know better.

I also think about all the misery that I was part of in this dead person’s life, the misery they caused, the misery I caused, and I think, oh, if only I had more time to rectify all those situations... all would be well and I’d feel better about the way things went. What a lousy view of things, lousy because such an idea is a fantasy completely detached from the very sufferings of life. And, anyway I should know that counter-factuals have to always be false......

So as there’s no way out, never a way out anyway, no possibility for atonement yet I’m left to atone for all the suffering I brought into this world. How can I or anybody ever fully atone for all of their sins, and to be quite honest I think it’s shameful that some human beings have tried to find a way out of this conundrum by charging Jesus Christ with this responsibility. How can he atone for the sins of all mankind, was he himself not a man, he lived, suffered and died like a man? Yes, I think so, but somehow it remains written that in that one death all of mankind has mystically attained the possibility of complete and utter salvation. I don’t know, maybe Jesus did believe this.... but I sure think it would be great if he came back yelled at all of us: "stop feeding off of me, stop feeding off of me... you people atone for your own sins, you’ve had two thousand years only to get it all wrong... atone for your own sins now, I’m through with all of you." Or, maybe he did try and somebody shot him right in the face before he had the chance to speak, mutilated as a child in some colonial war.

Whether it be anger or love, human beings don’t understand either language... I’m surprised Jesus even tried, but I guess that’s what it’s like to really love, something that I will never know, to give everything of yourself and expect only to receive hatred in return.

Although not a Christian the premise that I have to atone for the suffering that I inflict in one way or another is one that I agree with (I do not know the character of this atonement). However, I do not think that this can ever be completed in this life, but it is precisely this fact, this contradiction, that lies at the source of so much human disappointment.

It’s as if all of this is over before it even had the chance to begin... And, listening to ‘the stars of track and field,’ I’ll tell you that I can hear this right now, and I don’t particularly care whether it’s right or wrong.

If there was a chance at atonement or enlightenment or some resolution to this mess of a world then there would be something to figure out, there would be a reason or a list of reasons to be here, we’d all have our own shopping lists, and there would certainly be no regrets about death.

I do not think that such a possibility exists, I think the hope that such a possibility exists is a very cruel design (intentional or not). And this phoney possibility only gives me a reason to cry and feel and shitty about things. It’s a cruel design indeed. Although I know this, and despite the fact that I am unsure about most things in my life I’m pretty convinced about this, the recognition does me no good... I am still here and all of this pain remains.