Future Fears

I was on the bus yesterday trekking uptown to meet up with a friend for lunch. The M20 seems to have quite a few disabled pick ups along the way. So it causes the bus to be at any given stop for 5 to 10 minutes at a time, loading them up and locking them in or unlocking and letting them out of the bus. When I got on this time, there was already an older lady in the handicapped seating locked in with her wheelchair. I thought nothing of it and sat down and let my iPod mentally whisk me away. About a stop or two before mine, it was her stop. The bus driver did his do and unlocked her wheelchair and lowered the platform and she came off the bus. She scooted her self to the nearest pole by walking in the wheelchair, grabbed on to the pole to hoist herself up and then repositioned the wheelchair to use as a brace for her as she walked forward. I looked inside the bus and noticed that all the young folks were not just looking or observing… they were STARING at her (myself included). And seemingly we all looked at her till it was no longer convenient for us to turn our necks to see what she was doing all the while wide eyed with downturned mouths. Some shaking their heads or leaning on each other looking for comfort. It was a universal thought…

And we used to think that was a good thing. “I wanna live to be 100 years old.” But most of the 100 year olds we’ve seen have not really had the spry energy / ability of a 25 year old. Their spirit may have been that young. I guess the unknown is so frightening, we’d rather just stay here. It takes long enough to try and get used to… no one wants to jump from here to the next new thing. Or to nothing. My brother confided in me the other day is that his greatest fear is that after all of this… it’s oblivion. Nothingness. I tried to alay his fear in saying – if it is indeed oblivion… there’s nothing to fear. He won’t feel it. Or know it’s happening. Or experience it. Can you imagine it? We all seem to be tied into some sort of “after life” where the spirit that occupies this shell shall continue to exist – somewhere. How ’bout if it doesn’t? Are we all so self centered that we can’t imagine no longer existing?

I am. *shrugs* I’ll stick to the philosophies that comfort me most now – I’ll always be young; I’ll always be healthy and self reliant… and… I’m going to live forever.

Yeah… that worked for about 2 minutes.

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