Its been a little while since my last blog post. I’ve had plenty of ideas, but have found difficulty evolving them from mental concepts into words that convey my thoughts. I find I think a lot in a conceptual space where words are not needed to understand concepts and principles. However, that makes it hard for me to express myself because I had to translate my thoughts into concrete words. That is until humans become telepathic. This idea of concept vs concrete has some parallels to the intent of this writing.
I’ve been reading the “Dune” series by Frank Herbert and find it to be an excellent body of literature and learning. It shows the inner workings of the minds of the characters to portray the motives and insecurities of them. This is a quite an interesting way of storytelling, especially since he is writing about people that are considered heroes or even Gods by the populace. This reminds us that no matter the outward appearance or our notions of someone, they are still human beings. Many times people forget that not only can someone he a hero and a normal person, but in order to be a hero, you HAVE to be in touch with your humanity. That was actually an idea I did not plan on putting in this post, so bonus for you.
In his third installment of the “Dune” series, Herbert writes as a thought from a character and a Maxim of a religion that “To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror; to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.” This is a profound statement that I find is able to mirror many other facets of life than just mortality. To know something as words and a logical necessity of life is not the same as knowing and believing in the concept those words portray. Many people can quote sayings and teachings that are helpful and held as righteous by civilization, but can’t seem to live by them. This shows a disconnect in their mind between knowing the words and knowing the concept. Many even have to learn how to apply these notion one situation at a time. If they encounter a novel situation, they have yet to apply a notion of how they want to react and deal with it, they often react in opposition of how they wanted to. But if you truly think about how you want to be, understand the conceptualizations, and ingrain the ideas into your psyche, then when confronted with novel situations, you can react as you want to without a decision process.
This is akin to knowing who you want to be, and actually becoming who you want to be. If you want to become someone different, or better, than who you are, it takes hard work, devotion and incremental changes. This goes back to an earlier post of mine titled “Perfection Rapes the Soul.” So I won’t dwell in this idea, but will move back to the idea of mortality.
It’s a fact of life that everything that has ever lived, has or will die. Yet many are still surprised when confronted with mortality. “Why me” and “Why now” are common thoughts and grievances from people surprised by mortality. If they truly understood and accepted it, then these questions would be philosophical musings instead of utterances of disdain. Don’t get me wrong. Dying sucks whether you’ve accepted it or not. But if you have accepted it, it won’t surprise you and it is easier to deal with. It has to be imminently more peacefully to accept death as opposed to disdaining and refusing to accept it. Of course none of this talk of dealing with death is coming from personal experience as I’m not on my death bed, nor have had a mortal scare. But that doesn’t change the validity of my words.
So just remember, heroes are human, and spend some time with introspection to ingrain who you want to be into yourself.
Andrew Massoneau
DOC #1915816
An example from Dune would have helped.
Man. Good stuff. You are so right. Death comes. There’s nothing you can do about it. Accept it as early as you can to be able to live life to the fullest. I appreciate your words.