The atheist contemplates matters in which she professes disbelief

[rachelmanija]

If I had my druthers (whatever they are) I'd take off for the rest of the week, drive out in my rental car to somewhere where there's trees, take some books and my laptop and rent a room, and sit out in the fields and contemplate.

But I can't. I have a show to tech, and then a show to call. And then a job to get back to, though I don't suppose anyone would fault me for taking a few days off then.

This accident really shook me up, even if it turns out that I don't have to pay for the car. (That's still up in the air.) I thought I'd had enough near-death moments that I was already quite aware of my own mortality. I went back to a burning car to pull a friend out when I was nineteen. I searched another burning car for occupants when I was twenty-six or so, and got out and ran across the street about ten seconds before the whole thing exploded into flames, leaving nothing but a black and gray shell when the firefighters put it out another minute or so later.

I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in God. I believe in a universe which is only non-random to the extent that we affect it-- that the only way in which I'm more likely to die a sudden car-related death is in my propensity to brake for other people's crashes. The meaning in life is the meaning we bring to it. We are not ledger entries that some divine entity will judge.

But even though the odds of a coin toss are always fifty-fifty, we tend to see patterns and omens if we flip the coins long enough. And even though I don't believe that I was saved by the personal intervention of God because I have some further purpose, as a few people suggested, I can't help seeing patterns and omens.

I don't mean that I see the hand of God. What, so everyone who died in accidents that weekend were people God didn't choose to save because their lives would have been insignificant from that point on? If he could save me, why didn't he save others? I despise the idea of an interventionist God, and if he exists, I despise him personally. I'm not talking about God, but about something more impersonal, like destiny. As opposed to Destiny.

I always worry that I'll die before I finish whatever project I'm working on. And I've believed, in the irrational pattern-seeking part of my mind, that I was fated to die suddenly and violently and young. Maybe trying to save someone else, maybe just in a random crash on the freeway, but abruptly and with work left undone. I've done all sorts of things after soberly considering the possibility that if I put them off till later, I might die before I got the chance. (Examples include going to grad school immediately after college, both trips to Japan, my last two trips to India, and a number of generally ill-advised love affairs.)

If I'd died in that crash, with my book sold but unpublished and the rewrites not quite finished, with my black belt test untaken and my manga proposal sitting on an agent's desk (a proposal which explicitly says that the theme of the series is the beautiful fragility of life), leaving people with checks for karate lessons that I'd never take and rent on an apartment that I wouldn't live in, burning out rather than fading away, it would have been almost exactly how I'd always thought I'd die.

But I didn't. I crawled out the window with my purse and my brown belt, and I walked away without leaving a single drop of blood on the ground.

It seems as if that should mean something.

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I do believe in God, Rachel. Not the Christian God the Father, but in a God/Goddess. I generally refer to it as GGSAAWHH (Goddess, Great Spirit, and All We Hold Holy). Do I believe you were saved by that God and that all others who died that day were snubbed by God? No. But I do believe that nothing happens without a reason. There are patterns, even if we don't recognize them, and even if we don't understand them. That's the Mystery.

All you need to think about is enjoying the life you didn't lose. All we need to think about is enjoying the fact that you're still here. Personally, I thanked GGSAAWHH when I read your original post. I'm glad you're still here. I absolutely adore you. I can't tell you what it means, but reaffirming the joy of life and of friendships isn't a bad meaning to assign to it.

Mia

[tanuki-green.livejournal.com]

copperwise beat me to this response. GGSAAWHH, had a reason for making sure you're still here, and I'm thankful for that.

[larryhammer]

I have the same problems with an interventionist deity that you do. Philosophically, I'm a weak agnostic mystic: from experience, I believe in the Inner Light accessible by all, but what part of a deity this is, or even whether that's all there is of God, I don't know. For a while this bothered me, but I eventually concluded (following other, much wiser Quakers before me) that it doesn't matter — that the Inner Light is there is enough, so long as we listen to its still, small voice and hold it holy. Unless there is a God the Intervener, that's all we can know, and any other speculation and theology is irrelevant.

Yes, it does seem as if it ought to mean something. We evolved as creatures that recognize patterns, and we'll see patterns even when they aren't there (thus astrology). We apply those skills to anything we notice — and nearly dying in an accident really catches your attention.

Not to mention takes a while to recover from. Time off would probably be a good thing. But if you can't have it, you will, I'm sure, continue on, slowly getting past the shock. For it is a shock, just as much as any trauma shock.

You are alive. I'm thankful for it. That is enough.

---L.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I've heard the phrase before, but what exactly do you mean by the Inner Light? What is the experience of feeling it?

[larryhammer]

Hoo boy. Like all mystical and religious things, it's a slippery concept, but short answer: In Quaker theology, the Inner Light is one of the names given to that of God within everyone, which is the source of continuing revelation. In Christian Quaker theology, it's identified as the Inner Christ, that part of God which is our bridge to salvation. Either way, it is the source and the test of truth, and the bulk of Quaker practice is a spiritual discipline aimed at listening to the Inner Light.

I don't know how much you know about Friends, but in an unprogrammed meeting for worship, people gather and sit in expectant silence, waiting to be moved to speak. If one is moved, one stands and speaks, then sits down again in silence. (The convention is to allow at least a minute of silence between speakers, so that others may consider what has been said, to speak only once per meeting, and to never directly respond to another — though of course, sometimes it turns into an oblique debate.) The theory is, that if the words were truly moved by the Inner Light, they will be true, and those who listen with the Inner Light will recognize their truth. (This is the theological basis for doing everything by consensus: only if everyone recognizes something as truth do can we be reasonably certain that it is, in fact, true; if one person disagrees, it may be that they are listening better to the Inner Light.) And, of course, you shouldn't speak unless you are certain you are moved to, and don't merely want to.

What you do between speaking is up to you: some meditate, some let their thoughts drift, some consider a specific concern — whatever works for them. Sometimes, especially in smaller Meetings, no one will speak. This is rare, but an astonishingly powerful experience.

Those times I've spoken, sometimes afterward I realize I wasn't truly moved. When I have been moved, always the first sign I notice is getting stage fright. Until then, I usually have no notion that I'm even considering speaking about whatever I'm thinking about. When that happens, I consider my words carefully, winnowing out the core thought. I know I've reached it when the stage fright becomes a strong compulsion to Speak Now. Which, some of the time, I can't, because others are speaking (or just have) and I had to wait; and once, the signal to rise from meeting was given before I could speak.

I've spoken perhaps a handful of times. Those are my closest experiences with the Inner Light.

---L.

[larryhammer]

As usual, janni is wiser than I.

But even knowing that, a small correction: better than "listening better to the Inner Light" would be "hearing the Inner Light more clearly." Clearness being another important Quaker concept.

---L.

[kate_nepveu]

(I have just deleted two paragraphs of maunderings on different attitudes towards Stuff Happening. Be glad.)

I think there are two extremes of attitude, the "live life as if every day's your last" and "live life as though you'll have all of the average lifespan." I don't think either's more correct or better; they're a matter of personality influenced by experience. It sounds like this most recent accident has changed the experience variable, and you're trying to figure out whether that has a net effect on your attitude.

Another thing to toss in the mix might be how satisfied you are with the results of your attitude.

Best wishes for some quality contemplating time.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's what I was getting at, only not phrased quite so formally. (Are you a lawyer, by any chance? ;))

The thing is, I'm not sure what I've learned. Was it a demonstration that I was right before, that indeed, you should live as if one second you could be listening to Rosanne Cash and the next you could be dead, as just about happened? Or did it mean that even though horrendous life-threatening incidents may lurk right around the corner, you're not necessarily going to die because of them and are just as likely to continue on your merry way?

As for all the decisions I made because I thought I might not be around to do things later, the ones to travel and do grad school were ones I'm happy I made. The love affairs were about fifty-fifty worthwhile and not, but maybe that just means I have better luck with or overall prefer travel and college over dating.

I think you put your finger on what I'm puzzling over, but I'm not sure what the answer is. There's a sentence in my memoir, in a totally different context, in which I recount an incident and write, at the end, "It contained, I was sure, an important lesson which I was supposed to learn. But I had no idea what it was."

[kate_nepveu]

Aww, and here I thought I had my geek hat on rather than my lawyer hat. => (I was stealing time from a brief that I filed today, though, so maybe it bled over.)

Now, as someone who has a similar attitude towards fate/deities/the non-material as you describe in your post, my reaction to "did it mean that" is "it doesn't _mean_ anything, it just is." For every variant of attitude, I could construct a way to make the accident fit it--in other words, it doesn't have any inherent meaning or suggest one way of living is better than the other. That feels too close to me to "everything happens for a reason" in the prescriptive sense, rather than in the "every effect has a cause" sense.

I think if I were in your position right now, I would be asking myself: "okay, self, we had a bit of a wake-up call there. This is a good time to take stock: are we pretty happy with the way we're doing things?" Like birthdays and New Year's, the accident would be a prompt rather than a push.

I feel a little uncomfortable with this, because some people of the "things happen for a reason" school have come to it over time, and while I don't agree with them, there's nothing wrong with it as a philosophy. I don't want to be discouraging if you're feeling more inclined towards that view now. But from the premises you say you started with, you might be asking the wrong question.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

But even though the odds of a coin toss are always fifty-fifty, we tend to see patterns and omens if we flip the coins long enough.
I could've sworn there was some research by Diaconis et al. showing that this was not, in fact, the case, but the divergence was so small that for everyday matters only, ah, a mathematician would care. ^_^

On a less flippant note--I'm a very weak form of mostly non-practicing Christian, if that's not an oxymoron, but I am incredibly glad you're still here, and that's a form of meaning something from this vantage point. *wry look* May the contemplation happen sometime soon.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Count me as another who is grateful you are still here.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I suppose then trick is to find ways to make it mean something. But also to know that it doesn't have to get around to meaning something right away, maybe not for years and years.

But we writers are good at finding or making meanings, eventually.

In the meantime, I'm another simply glad things worked out as they did. The meaning behind it can work itself out in time.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I do believe that things happen for a reason, but that we may never know what the reason is, and the reason may really have nothing to do with us directly. I also believe in a semi-deterministic God, more akin to the Inner Light that Larry was talking about, or to entering the flow of ki, than I suspect what most other Christians mean when they talk about God. I think prayer influences what happens, just as your ki can influence the people around you. I also think that if you think you're going to die violently at a young age, that may push you towards dying violently at a young age.

As to your travel and college working out better than the love affairs, keep in mind that the love affairs were also affected by the other parties involved.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that that's the trouble with love affairs. But then again, the one person common to all of them was me.

[tweedkitten.livejournal.com]

i've come very close to death a couple of times, but never thought about it much. it's not that i didn't (or don't) care about my life of that i don't fear death, but i sort of understood somehow, amidst everything, that my time hadn't come yet.

^_~ you have much ass left to kick in this world, rachel.