Being/Oblivion/Memory
Oblivion derives from the latin, to forget, and is defined by Webster as the condition or fact of being forgotten. To obliterate is to erase, leave no trace, destroy. Today it is often used to describe a place or a state of being.
The idea that there is a place called oblivion is so radical to any thinking being it’s shocking to discover how prevalent it is in common conversation. I would like to see this place. Is it like the image above? Has anyone ever been there? Like heaven and hell the assumption is that these are actual physical places. Oblivion then would be a place of forgetfullness where memory is erased, but is memory any more real than a place called oblivion? Memory is an idea; an experience of the mind describing something or someone that is or was at one time Real. But memory itself is an abstraction not unlike the abstraction of nothingness, of not-being.
Current physics refuses the concept that something can be and then not be. What is-is. What isn’t-isn’t. Though it changes shape, all matter always was and will always be. Life on planet earth was at one time star-stuff. The original matter that was the star was something else before. Does that mean that the star is now in oblivion? If everything that ever was still exists in some form what difference does it make if it is remembered by the human mind?
The important thing is that it still exists; the atom that became a star that became my cat, that will become part of a tree. All one flow of energy in a constant stream of creative bliss; the music of the spheres. And my little human life? What will it become and where will what I call ‘me’ go? Certainly not to oblivion, and probably not to heaven or hell either.
A question for next time; does thought have matter?
February 27th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
My immediate response is that it’s all the Great Stream changing shape, from moment to moment, thoughts and matter shifting the way fog changes shape — and what is thought, what is matter — is it all just an abstract exercise trying to distinguish the two? Or are thoughts the way matter reflects on itself? My bunch of matter has to ponder this … maybe slap the table!
February 27th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Russ Orwig nice essay…
i love ideas, and i am amazed that there are atomic systems (call them humans) staked out on a lonely planet in the immensity of space, and these systems contemplate their existence…
that there is anything rather than nothing is the first great miracle…that there are systems made of interchangable parts that exist in time and have thoughts and memories is the second miracle…life is this miracle, and when the system breaks down, its dynamic ends, life ends, i end…i am not consoled that the atoms that now make up my skin and blood will soon be a part of a worm or a plant or a virus, and that the atomic dance will go on with all the parts of me freed to play and reconnect…russ will be no more…the universe will cease to be……
3 hours ago ·
February 28th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Our thoughts are making our fingers (made of matter) type, our brain cells (matter) humm, our eyeballs (matter) wiggle back and forth. That in itself is pretty amazing. How can something that isn’t matter inspire matter? That one might make me dizzy! A mental mobius strip.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I love this bit, thanks for posting it.