Release by Rich Aucoin

“Come to terms with death. Thereafter anything is possible” -Camus

One day, back when I was an 8 year old girl, I had a thought that I could never unthink. The thought was that one day I would no longer exist. Up until that point, I had no thoughts on mortality other than the realization of the periodical disappearances of pets and grandparents who all vanished in my early years leaving only a faded memory in my mind, like dreams upon waking.

But in that moment it became clear that I, and everyone and everything I've ever known would be gone one day. I felt a weight on my chest as if an elephant was preventing my ribs from expanding. So I began working on a theory to manage this terror. Everyone has a theory. It seems that a lot of our conflict and disconnectedness comes from sharing these respective theories with one another. How much better could our world be if we kept them to ourselves?

I began to think of what I knew and what I didn't know and realized that the latter was far larger. Doubt gives life to a theory; it tests it. In doing, it is alive and not decaying like a monument chiseled in stone. I began to consider who I was. Did I adopt personality traits because others had said that's who I was? If there were no others, who would I choose to be?

Could I even exist without The Other? Was I just the culmination of all my interactions, good and bad, with the world? I have always thought that it's easier to trust others and risk of being hurt than to build walls against them and fight. Besides, after the fighting is done, who were you fighting but yourself?

Later that same day, while eating an apple, my dad told me ‘you are what you eat’, on any other day, this would have been a bit of healthy dietary advice, but on this day it made me wonder whether I had a self to begin with. Maybe, my thoughts, like my sense of taste, are just an experience and I don't author them anymore than I author the way I taste an apple. Yet it feels like I have some ownership over the experience because it is occurring in my head. In my body. Am I in my head? Am I in my body? Am I my body? Our bodies change; do we become different people when they do?

All these changes were happening so fast. I wanted to have control and so I was fighting against the universe to be me. But when I realized I was the universe (and that you are the universe, and the other is the universe) I was able to finally let go to it all. There is no self; there might not even be choice.

When I got to that point, I realized it both relaxed and scared me more than anything. On the one hand, it was relaxing because I could just accept the universe as an experience and be filled with compassion for others, upon whom luck had not fallen favourably. I could know, that whatever they did or whatever I did, was bound to have happened. But, on the other hand, it was terrifying because it meant that I could be also one of those unlucky people and there was nothing I could do. Even at our least or greatest moments, there's the uncomfortable feeling at the back of our minds, providing contrast, that the worst could always happen— death.

I felt like I needed to escape. I began to immerse myself in stories, fantasies, nostalgia, worlds. If I was engaged in a story, I was unaware of mortality. Over time, these stories helped me face death. Every story is triumph or tragedy in the face of fear— I began to realize that I could not progress forward until I had confronted this fear.

So I took all of these feelings and with them made a theory; of course, I cannot tell you what that theory is so as to not run the risk of damaging yours. What I can suggest is that, when you make your own theory, you keep it secret. It's yours. I seldom take my own advice but, still, it is futile to convince someone else to accept your theory just as it is absurd for the other to expect you to believe theirs. Your theory gives you the power to cope with that original unthinkable thought— the inevitably of non-existence. Life is like enjoying the apple while realizing there is a worm at the core. Your theory helps you keep eating anyway.

This time is not enough, this life is not enough, our time was not enough. So give it up. As our lives slip away, these theories, these wonderlands are the blankets we wrap ourselves in while we take that brave step into the unknown.

richaucoin.ca
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