Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Heaven and hell achieved through way of life, memory

Donald Clegg

I do a fair amount of thinking, or what passes for it with me, about what I call MOIA (“moya,” like boy with an A), which is short for the “Meaning of It All.”

You know, the little things – life and death, and what we’re here for in the “mean-time.”

Now, I don’t think I’m overly morbid, but an acquaintance’s recent unexpected, premature departure – into the hospital and gone the next day – does give me cause to reflect on what’s in store for us all.

Her memorial service reminded me that the tribute we pay the dead is also for ourselves, that others might do the same for us after we’re gone. By honoring the departed we pay respect, accord dignity and give meaning to their lives. Not to mention our own.

They can no longer speak directly for themselves, but in paying homage, we respect the brevity of life by extending it in some small way through our own. Thus there is a continual chain of memory, each link shrinking a bit over time, eventually coming to an end, as is simply the way of all life.

Our lives are most vigorously our own but to the extent that we remain, in the memories of others, either directly or through the works we leave behind, we do have an afterlife of sorts. This is not a philosophy of belief, but of fact.

So the first meaning of life is that it ends.

Fortunately, there is also this fact: Although our deaths occur, they do not happen. Happenings take time; death is the cessation of time. As Wittgenstein put it, “Death is not an event in life. We do not live to experience death.”

So, whatever death is, it is not something that we need overly concern ourselves with, as we will (by definition) be unaware of it. My own understanding of it is Epicurean: “When I am not, death is; when I am, death is not.”

The second meaning of life is that if it is well lived, it does continue in a fashion, as I just mentioned, through the grace of others’ memories and reflections – an extended, benevolent echo of our being.

This I will call heaven. Like our lives, it, too, is ephemeral.

The third meaning of life, naturally, is the converse; that if it is badly lived – think of Hitler – it is also extended, but in a mean manner: I spit on your grave.

This I will call hell. Its mercy is also its brevity.

The fourth meaning of life is that it is worthwhile to seek heaven rather than hell. Many traditional believers have an absurd notion regarding humanist morality: that without God there can be no such thing and that to eliminate God is to eliminate the desire for the good and the need to live accordingly.

Nothing could be further from the truth. By recognizing the fact of our deaths, in advance, with the knowledge that all we are is what we are at this moment, we are actually able to live as if they matter.

And if internal desire is lacking, one question should suffice: “Will I be thought of well or poorly?”

So we seek the good, either from our own accord or with a desire to be thought well of (probably a mix of each for most of us, not being saints), and in so doing we minimize hell.

The natural conclusion, then, is that if a well-lived life creates our heaven, then that life itself is also part of it.

Never mind an “afterlife.” Live for the one you have. It’s now.

Surely that, and what a surprise if there’s more.

Donald Clegg, a longtime Spokane resident, is an author and professional watercolor artist. Contact him via e-mail at info@donaldclegg.com.