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Maybe this is about meaning. Maybe it's about death in the sense that we are (I am) impermanent. Maybe it's about a dog. Maybe this should be a blog post. I don't know for sure.
It seems to be the nature of things that they don't last. Somewhere many of us have gotten the idea that things should last, or that they're superior if they do. Nature kind of mocks this idea, though.
I guess that's where I'm stuck. By my beliefs, my consciousness is a product of my living brain. When that brain ceases to be alive, my consciousness ceases. With effort I can deal with that as it pertains to me, but I can't really as it pertains to those I love. Maybe it seems self absorbed to want to endure myself and so I can conceive of ceasing to exist. But for others, I can hardly bear thinking of them gone.
My dog is getting old. He probably has 2-4 years left and I'll likely see him die. I love animals in the sense most people use the word, but my love for him leaves me a bit awe struck. He's a dog, so he's prone to most dog excesses like destroying things or humping legs or pillows or anything he can mount sometimes. He's a sloppy eater. The list goes on, but mostly his is the most gentle and genuine soul I've ever encountered. God.
I love my moments with him and I don't let my heady concerns interfere with those moments. Maybe he sees a longing for something when our eyes meet, but after e few seconds he bows and grabs a toy and we're off to the races, which are almost slow motion these days, but that suits both of us.
His life is too good to be so brief, and that's true for all of us in some way or another. We get a chunk of a century and then life goes on. Without us. Again, I think I can handle that on a personal level, but with the things and people and dogs I love it seems too little.
Some things should last. If not the things themselves, then the impact they had. Do they?
Beliefs do not last either.
Your beliefs are wrong in their basic premise.
Hence, you will never find peace, unless you change the concept of your life.
Meditate over this:
1. Try to imagine yourself never been born. As hard as you can.
2. Try to imagine yourself non-existent after death. As hard as you can.
Dedicate some time and effort to this meditation.
When you FAIL to do so, meditate over this:
Maybe you DO exist before and after?
Some things should last. If not the things themselves, then the impact they had. Do they?
Everything is finite in it's own timeframe, the sun will eventually burn out, universe will expand into a flyaway state of infinity, even the most famous persons and acts will eventually be forgotten. Human and animal existence will either cease or evolve to a state unrecognizable to what it is now.
As to a state of conscious existence pre or post one's present existence, what would it be if consciousness and intelligence did not expand, improve and evolve along with it. Imagine existing indefinitely in your present state, thousands, tens of thousands of years getting up, making breakfast, paying bills, going to work, cleaning the house, cooking, etc...etc...
Some things should last. If not the things themselves, then the impact they had. Do they?
The impact is lasting, I can testify to that. I have lost dogs, a wife, a brother, a mother, and a son to death, and their memory and their impacts endure.
Everyone knows that nothing is forever. We hope that we will not outlive our spouse or at least not our children, and thus blunt the force of those losses. We have death from old age "priced in", but not death out of turn, "before the time" or with much suffering, which all the above-listed were.
Hackneyed as it is, for me it comes back to the old chestnut, "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Otherwise you fail to remember the best of those you've lost, and to be grateful for that best. You get stuck bemoaning the loss itself, and perhaps, any regrets or disappointments from those necessarily imperfect relationships.
It sounds like you are fully experiencing your dog while he's alive, warts and all, and that's the best you can do to prepare for the inevitable.
When I wrote the OP I was in a bit of a mood, I guess. I typically believe that we all have the potential to impact the people in our lives, for the good hopefully. In that sense we're a part of them, and them, us. I know my dog is an inextricable part of me, and definitely for the better. So he'll continue to speak through me, and I'll speak through the people and dogs I interact with, and so on.
Life is OK, but looked at too narrowly it seems so cruelly brief.
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