Are humans like computers? When a computer is turned off, it loses its memory. That which makes it function is gone. The hardware is still there, and if you turn the power back on, all the functionality gets loaded back into memory and off it goes again. But if it is never turned on again, what it was known for - its capabilities, its quirks...it's "personality"...are lost for good.

But what happens to a human when it dies?

I got to thinking about this the other day and became frightened about death for probably the first time in my life. I remember when I was very young, I would try to think back before the time I was born, and was perplexed by the concept that anything could have existed before me. I was rather disturbed that there was this finite beginning to my awareness and my inability to conjure up memories that preceeded me. I learned to accept and adapt to that over time, but it is still just a bit weird to me.

Then I thought about when I went into surgery in March for my broken hand. I can clearly remember drifting out of consciousness when the anethesia was administered. Then, what literally seemed like a second later, I regained consciousness. I clearly remember this, too. What was very disturbing was that there was about an hour in between the two events that are simply missing from my life.

At least when I sleep, I feel I have some sense of time passing - as though I am not fully unaware - perhaps because I dream. But this gap in my consciousness - this utter timeless lapse of knowing - is a bit distressing. I began to wonder if that blackness - that total lack of existence - is what it is like to be dead. Could that truly be the end of a life? What, then, would all this time and effort be for, to learn and improve and strive to make life grand? Why do all that if the switch is simply going to be turned off one day?

I don't have any definable beliefs in any specific concept of "God" (in whatever form it may take), although I have always felt that there must be more to all this that what our simple minds can grasp. Perhaps there will be some part of me - some pattern of energy - that will leave my body to live on in another form, not completely devoid of consciousness after my body dies. I can only hope. But until that day comes, the question probably will remain unanswerable, for how can one attempt to prove existence beyond death by using tools of the living? Maybe one day, science will develop a tool to detect such post-life dimensions, but it seems the only way to do that would be to know what death is. And I'm not sure anyone has defined that just yet.

I also refuse to lock myself into a particular belief system. Why choose to accept a notion based simply on faith? That seems rather limiting as it seems it would stifle one's potential growth and perspective. I guess that is why they call it the straight and "narrow". If there is a "God" (or gods - or whatever the core concept truly represents) then there must be many, many valid paths in life, just as there are many, many people to follow them. I simply do not believe there is just one, single "right" way to live. Perhaps there is one truth (or perhaps truth is simply what you make of it), but whatever truth is, it doesn't matter what you believe, because that's not going to change it. Therefore, I choose to seek out knowledge and understanding with an open mind so that perhaps, one day, I may discover how things are, rather than seek to find ways to validate a belief.

Anyway, I got on a tangent - probably due to this entry in the McBlog blog, written by my friend Jeff. Look for the entry about what a Pagan is. It was a very interesting entry that certainly stimulated a whole lot of thoughts in my head.

My computer is still on. I better tend to it.