Being Busy

Being busy is great. It helps the days pass in a flash which ensures that we are never bored and are never left alone with our thoughts, something that my wife regularly fears. She fears being left alone to think about things and prefers to keep as busy as possible, whereas I would be very happy to be left in the corner with my thoughts to contemplate the world.

To say that this conjures up illusions of me being a loner would be an understatement as at my core, I am a loner. I love the peace and quiet of life, with the irony here being that London is my home and I regularly pack my daily calendar with things to do, yet I am doing it for a much different reason than my wife.

Making the Most of Every Day

I love my life and as a part of that feel obliged to make the most of every second of life that I am provided with as you never know when the story will end.

I could wake up one day to nothing. I could open my eyes to discover that everyone I have ever loved or cared about in this life has been vaporized and taken away, yet somehow I survived.

Would I want to live in this world? Of course not and the more appropriate question would be, could I live in this world? I could but I would not want to and herein lies the difference between me and my wife.

My wife likes noise to ensure that she never has to think for too long. To ensure that she never needs to reflect or take a moment. To be happy in the peace and quiet of the world around rather than being forced to ponder the reality that surrounds her, which I understand and could not live in a world of silence myself either.

I do love silence and having the time within the day to think but would I want to live my entire life in this manner?

No. Of course, I would not as I am driven to make the most of every minute that I am provided with, as so many others do not receive this reality. They are provided with an abrupt end to this existence and therefore, if I sat by idly then it would in a way be disrespectful.

To not make the most of every day is to acknowledge that life is not that important. To agree with yourself that it should not be prioritised as there are other considerations that can take up your time. That you will get a second chance, yet as we all know, this is not the case.

Fear of the Silence

Most modern programming and thought belief points the fingers towards there being no God, that when you die the world simply goes blank as you are laid to rest. There is nothing more. There is no heaven and there is no way of reliving the days by which you have lost.

This is a sobering thought but one which we should always keep in mind, as if we take this life for granted and do not aim to make the most of every day, then what will be left with at the end? Regret is what we will be left with and at the end of the day, no one wants to live life with regret as that is something that you cannot change and have to live with.

To ponder the abstract thought that the body dies, yet the thoughts and memories live on is encouraging, much like every version of heaven that is batted around.

To imagine being trapped in a decomposing box as your body rots away is terrifying. To be trapped, waiting for the dead to once again rise, with only your thoughts for company is enough to scare anyone into submission.

It is this that I believe my wife fears. Being left alone with primordial feelings like this, which conjure up images and feelings of having no way out is what keeps children awake at night and something that sends chills down the most hardy of soldiers.

To know that in an instant someone could take away your life and the only thing that awaits you is yourself and your thoughts. No stimulation and only memories for the rest of eternity.

The keyword from above is eternity and this is where any concepts of heaven fall to the wayside as could you really imagine being stuck on a cloud forever, with only the thoughts of the past and watching the world below you for company?

Extended from this are those that cheat on partners or those that die and then the partner re-marries, I mean how awkward does that sound? To spend eternity with your wife’s second husband, who she may have liked more than you? How awkward is that?

A Final Thought

Being busy is great. It prevents apathy from kicking in and feeling as though you are wasting your life and drifting through the day but it is a fine line. We should as human beings be able to spend time alone with our thoughts to figure out what the hell we want to do with our days, rather than feeling as though we would end up wasting our lives.

The biggest thought of regret here that I always have is the potential waste of my life and looking back thinking that I missed opportunities. As much as I do not want to live forever and I do not want to do, this is by far the most terrifying thought out there. Regrets suck at the best of time and to leave this mortal coil with them is unacceptable.

I am happy with my thoughts but not to the point where I want to spend eternity with them and I am unsure who would want to enjoy this as their retirement. We are provided with a limited time on earth as otherwise we would end up feeling unfulfilled.