“Death is something inevitable. When a man has
done what he considers to be his duty to his people and his country, he can
rest in peace. I believe I have made that effort and that is, therefore, why I
will sleep for the eternity.” - Nelson Mandela
One of my friends
shared the above quote of Nelson Mandela few days ago on Facebook.
The quote triggered the
thought of thinking and thinking logical, we all know that Death is one of the most exhausted topics of
conversation, because it is unavoidable. We move with great
speed through life, sure of only one thing, that one day we will stop moving.
We talk about it but do we really give it a thought, it is evident why we
must die – Dying to save space - because the
Earth is a limited space to live in.
Or Dying to Evolve, we reproduce to create
a bettered version of ourselves. Our children are therefore better equipped to
survive the world than we are, just as the iPhone 3G turns heads no more these
days, and we too are useless once the next generation is born so we die.
But what about Dying to Prevent Boredom, attractive as
the idea of immortality sounds, living forever would take all the fun out of
life. Here, I’ll reference a speech made by Achilles in the movie, Troy to
Briseis, (the girl he keeps in his tent) he says that “the Gods envy us for our mortality – that every moment is so beautiful
because it will never come again. In the prime of our lives, men are (usually)
at the peak of their physical abilities and women are the most beautiful they
will ever be. Intelligence, fortunately, follows linear growth so most of us
continue to gain intelligence until the day we lose our minds completely, and
even then who says losing your mind isn't the smartest thing to do? We die to
give greater significance to all experiences in our lives.
Granted, we will die someday, but is there any
way to stretch the time in between?”
I saw Inception recently and was very
impressed with how Christopher Nolan manages timelines in the movie. It is
indeed true, that time dilates in our dreams.
Both of these have a
common factor which created the experience of time slowing down – an increased
rate of thought formation.
SO we should think more to elongate our own experience of time, the
mind in fact is the most wonderful gift God could given us. It allows for
endless exploration of all possibilities in the privacy of our head; the only
part of ourselves that is completely our own, inaccessible to anyone else. Just
as I have, you must stretch your own ego and embrace the concept that this is
your world that you are its God and your perception of it is all that exists.
Then you will be able to grasp that stretching your own perception of time,
stretches time for your whole world. I’m saying that the more thoughts you
have, the slower time passes for you. It is the blank moments, when I don’t
have a thought about life that just flies by – although I appreciate those too,
on occasion.
Now, I've never been a
fan of talkers – I find that the more people talk, the greater the noise that
drowns out the signal (good ideas). A similar situation may exist for
heavy-thinkers as well – the more thoughts you have, the more useless thoughts
you may have that overshadow your useful ideas. If you are content with simply
stretching your own perception of time, then by all means, think away! Think
smartly, think nonsensically, and think however you like.
But, we do have
limited time in this world, no matter what our perception of it is. Myself, I
am not content with having any useless ideas; I consider ideas that do not
directly or indirectly result in action to be a complete waste of time. So, I
would never allow myself to think simply for the sake of thinking. Then again,
I may be completely wrong here, but a little more thinking never hurt anyone.
Except perhaps those who are afraid of having thoughts at all.