Wise One,
Sleep has been strange for me lately. Some days I find myself not sleeping enough, and others I sleep excessively. I no longer have a proper sleep routine, or a proper routine for anything on that matter. I know I should work on it, but finding the motivation to keep proper routines have been difficult this month. After all, there is no where to be. As long as I finish my weekly assignments on time, there is no consequence for failing to keep a proper schedule...aside from maybe good health.
That being said, I had a strange dream during my morning nap. I was in some sort of afterlife, it was a grey building full of windows. As I looked through the windows I could see people's various versions of heaven and hell. I focused on those in heaven. Everything would seem beautiful on first glance, but if you looked deeper you would notice some sort of sinister piece, and the owner of that "heaven" wore a creepy smile, seemingly blissfully unaware of the bizarre growth petruding from their bodies.
I spoke with the one who seemed the kindest, and had no smile. As we spoke we walked through her botanical garden.. She explained each "heaven" was an evolving simulation of the person's desires. It usually starts off beautiful and pure, but when eternity last forever peace is boring. Her final words were, "since everything is a simulation, it doesn't matter what havoc we wreak" as she removed her gloves revealing the growths forming in her hand. My surroundings changed from a beautiful garden, to a creepy thorny woods where the trees seem to grab at me as I desperately tried to escape. I awoke before she caught me.
When I calmed down, I began watching YouTube and came across a video explaining "The Good Place". In this show, it has a point where they reveal the people are bored with heaven because "it lasts forever". While I didn't think to much of it at first, I then realized that this is how we humans behave. For example, many Americans would call themselves poor, despite having access to technology and products most in the world live without. We are used to it, so it becomes the expectation. The one wealthy person I met was still unsatisfied, as they would say "when it is too easy, and there is nothing you need to work for, life gets so boring".
It makes me wonder, can people really be satisfied in eternal bliss? Or would it actually get boring after a while? Is this why atheist prefer the idea that we live once, and when we die, there is nothing?
Though there is no way to answer these questions, what I do know is that I sometimes have moments when I crave more. A better home, enough money to eat at a fancy restaurant, and not worry about the bill, a newer phone. However, what I already have is pretty nice! Now, we have no job, and the company my husband worked for may go out of business thanks to the pandemic. This means that there may be no job to get back to when this is over. We are already struggling with the bills, just like so many others.. Knowing we may lose it all when this is over makes me more grateful than I have ever been for what I have now. It makes me guilty realizing I lost sight of how good I've had it, especially when I experienced true poverty as a child. I am just used to this life, it became the expectation. It shouldn't take all this to remind me to be grateful. Perhaps having gratitude in our daily lives would make earth feel a little more like heaven.
Though it has only been a few days, I'm already learning a lot by writing to you. Thank you.