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Imagine This
Nov. 1st, 2006 08:45 pmI love John Lennon as much as the next guy but the song "Imagine" has always bothered me.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
I imagined there was no heaven once, gathered all my strength and imagined that this life is all there is.
above us only sky
I imagined this not just for an hour or a day, but every waking moment for several years. Initially it was liberating, but that sensation didn't last long. An all-consuming emptiness set in and I began to obsess over the implications of such an existence. In short, I went quite mad. I came to the same conclusion this Russian Orthodox monk did who wrote:
"If man is to end in nothingness, then in the deepest sense it does not matter what he does in this life, for nothing he may do is of any ultimate consequence, and all talk of 'living life to the full' is empty and vain. It is absolutely true that if there is no immortality, the world is absurd and 'everything is permitted'--which is to say, nothing is worth doing, the dust of death smothers every joy and prevents even tears, which would be futile...Nothing in this world --not love, not goodness, not sanctity, --is of any value, or indeed even has any meaning if man does not survive death."
I ain't no day tripper, but I changed my mind. I'm a dreamer, a believer and a lover of peace. I get high with a little help from my friends and I imagine heaven.
I also like to imagine that this ball of blue light is my sister Karma, visiting my parents and I in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. I always used to call her "the blue thing" because her eyes were blue and also because of a They Might Be Giants song.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
I imagined there was no heaven once, gathered all my strength and imagined that this life is all there is.
above us only sky
I imagined this not just for an hour or a day, but every waking moment for several years. Initially it was liberating, but that sensation didn't last long. An all-consuming emptiness set in and I began to obsess over the implications of such an existence. In short, I went quite mad. I came to the same conclusion this Russian Orthodox monk did who wrote:
"If man is to end in nothingness, then in the deepest sense it does not matter what he does in this life, for nothing he may do is of any ultimate consequence, and all talk of 'living life to the full' is empty and vain. It is absolutely true that if there is no immortality, the world is absurd and 'everything is permitted'--which is to say, nothing is worth doing, the dust of death smothers every joy and prevents even tears, which would be futile...Nothing in this world --not love, not goodness, not sanctity, --is of any value, or indeed even has any meaning if man does not survive death."
I ain't no day tripper, but I changed my mind. I'm a dreamer, a believer and a lover of peace. I get high with a little help from my friends and I imagine heaven.
I also like to imagine that this ball of blue light is my sister Karma, visiting my parents and I in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. I always used to call her "the blue thing" because her eyes were blue and also because of a They Might Be Giants song.
