Death is on my mind today. I apologize for being morbid, but I can't help but feel this. Upon opening my Facebook, I saw that my brother has joined a group of his friend's passing. I clicked on the page, wondering "Was it cancer? Was it a freak accident?". The page didn't say. I think, that maybe, the terms that Death has drawn up around an individual's passing dictates how the rest of us mourn. Maybe. This boy, my brother's friend, as it turns out, is also one of my closest friend's sister's friend too. Small world. My deepest condolences to his family, his friends and everyone who has had the pleasure of meeting him. I can't be categorized in any of the said groups of people, but I empathize for them all. I know how such a Facebook group can retain the rawest of emotion, the unmasked and spontaneous aspects of mourning. I know this through my 4th year university cousin, Supernova (there's a song by Mr. Hudson of the same title, but my cousin had the name in his email address a long time back). He, and his older brother, lost their mom around a year ago. Such a thing is unfathomable to me. Supernova lost one of his best friends around two years ago. If I were him, I wouldn't know how to breathe, let alone smile or do all the other things he does. He is only four years older than me. I don't know how he does it. What I regret is that I can't help him - who am I to try to help? He hasn't told me any of his thoughts directly - I know these things through following his blog and following his Facebook groups. I have no expertise, no experience and very few and uninsightful words of comfort; I would be just another person who tries. I've never lost a best friend, I've never lost a loving parent, I've never experienced a death of someone close to me, let alone two. Supernova's friend's tribute Facebook group is never left untouched. If you read what is posted on the wall, you will see that every other week, a friend says "Missing you", or "Never forgotten", or something of the like. Just from seeing others' turmoil from so impersonal thing like a Facebook group, forces you to know how good people go and how unfair life is. It's hard not to believe in God when life presents itself this way. When all is said and done, everything is useless and empty when you realize that everything has already been said and done. Nothing more. I won't live a less moral life, nor will I be less kind or empathic a person. It's just that I don't know how faith works for me. You can hate me, anyone can really, for saying this, but I suppose the God who made this world the wonder that it is, who programmed our brains and cells to be have enormous potential and capabilities - enough to create Rome, and the empires, and extract glowing genes from jellyfish to put into cancer cells, and build machines to investigate the existence of parallel universes, would understand how I am confused over something so significant. You can't just join the nearest church to your house. You can't just follow what the majority of the population is following. You can't instinctively follow what your parents or friends follow. It's about you and your supposed salvation. Having been a child raised in an agnostic home (my mom used to do the annual incense and Chinese praying thing when I was young, but life became progressively more and more busy and the ritual transformed into a routine revolving around a special dinner), my morals, goodwill and outlook on the world is based on everything nonreligious. "Treat others the way you want to be treated" - my mom and teachers, equates to "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You" - Matthew 7:12. This rule of ethics is not so much religious, more so rational. I guess religion has never played a role in my decision-making, and I'm not a bad person, so there's little incentive for me to go on a religion hunt. I don't want to lay inches away from death and use religion as a way to comfort myself, either. It's hard enough to believe that "everything happens for a reason", let alone "God intended for that to happen". Too many bad things happen in this world for me to not be resentful and angry at God. But I also know that it's beyond coincidence that humans have the incredible ability do what we've done and are continuing to do - searching for religion being one of them. So I'm torn in-between.
I've been listening to this all day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaUI6Tvd1sA
- ShufflingHard
P.S. An add-on to my previous "what bothers me" list: People who use the word "gay" or "homo" as an adjective to "stupid".
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