If nothing else, this novel both entertained and made me think, although I suspect that I was seldom thinking what I was supposed to be thinking. Typical.
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"Hindus see the universe in terms of Karma, a process of constant circulation, which is to say that you don't really "end up" anywhere at the end of your life - not in heaven or hell - but you just get recycled back to the earth again in another form, in order to resolve whatever relationships or mistakes you left uncompleted last time. When you finally achieve perfection, you graduate out of the cycle entirely and melt into The Void. The notion of karma implies that heaven and hell are only to be found here on earth, where we have the capacity to create them, manufacturing either goodness or evil depending on our destinies and our characters." "Even in ones lifetime it's obvious how often we must repeat our same mistakes, banging our heads against the same old addictions and compulsions, generating the same old miserable and often catastrophic consequesnces." "That repetition of suffering - that's hell. Moving out of that endless repetition to a new level of understanding - there's where you'll find heaven". EPL p. 262
This actually matches my view of life incredibly well. All physical bits of our existance are recycled back into the natural cycles of the world (barring formaldehyde), why not our soul or consciousness? I wouldn't say that I believe this but I can say that I could believe this, I can make the logic work, which I can't with many other religions.
It also aligns well with what I want to believe. I like life. I like living it. I would like to keep on living it after I am dead. Heaven sounds boring; Hell sounds awful. I would like more life when I am done with this one, please.
The concept of 'The Void' scares me quite deeply. Once, when I was about 8, I tried to imagine being dead. Not being raised religiously I had no concept of any kind of afterlife so basically I started by removing my senses: nothing to see or hear or smell or taste or feel. Just consciousnes floating in a black void. This wasn't so bad: I could recall and ponder things that I had experienced in life. But wait, if I was dead I couldn't think or be aware or anything! (At this point I was starting to panic.) There was just nothing and I didn't even know it was nothing! (Panic rising...) There was no 'me' to be aware and no one was aware of me! At this point I burst spontaneously into tears and sobbed uncontrollably (and inexplicably to those outside my head) for hours. I cried for several hours and sunk into a deep depression, unable to articulate to anyone what had scared me so badly. (This is the first time I logiced myself into a depression, but by no means the last.) Finally, after about 6 hours of sobbing I was able to blurt out "I don't want to die". I was given the usual comforts applied to a child, that I was safe and no one was going to hurt me, but no one had any clue that the crisis was more of a metaphysical nature.
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Sometimes I can only get a to a specific point by the long way around. If I get to a nice place quickly I'm always a bit suspicious and skeptical. Easy and nice? No way, it can't be real. You have to suffer to get to a good place. I'm the same way, sometimes, with a philosophy. If you said to me, "you might as well have fun because worrying doesn't change the outcome" I would wave you off like a pesky fly but the following very circuitous argument worked on me:
"What's it like in hell?"
"Same like heaven. Universe is a circle."
"Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?"
"Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell, you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up."
"You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell - the destinations-are the same thing?"
"Same in end, so better to be happy on journey."
For some reason, this finally made sense to me. If we're worm food either way, we might as well enjoy the time we have. Something just clicked in my brain this time, I guess I'm done with beating my head against the wall on this one and am finally ready to understand and move forward.
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Mosquitos - If you sit outside for two hours while ravaged by mosquitos, at the end of the night you will have much more than 20 mosquito bites. Clearly the author has never been to Canada.
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Unpeel - If the peel is the outer layer and removing the peel is called 'peeling' what are you doing when you 'unpeel' someone? Are you taking their clothes off or putting them back on? (This almost falls into the realm of 'unthaw' with me, but not quite.)
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"The Bhagavad Gita - that ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection." EPL p. 95
While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you can admire without becoming or following.
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"And if Venice is sinking, I'm going under, 'Cause beauty's religion and it's christened me with wonder." Spirit of the West
The section on Venice reminded me of this song. Spirit of the West lyrics are sometimes bloody genius.
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"You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight." EPL p. 115
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