The Ultimate Undo

Undo versus Delete. A Real Story of Life and Death.

Isn't it interesting that while we have the power to kill ourselves, we had no say-so, no informed consent, if you will, in terms of choosing to live life in the first place. A choice made for us by total strangers.

I don't recall being asked for my permission as to whether or not I wanted to live as a human on planet Earth. On its face, such a statement sounds silly, even foolish, as if asked by a child. But a terrible truth underlies the comment, and once again demonstrates the amazing power of asking the right questions, instead of guessing at unprovable answers.

Most of us, at one time or another, has thought or said, "If I had only known back then, what I know now." The remark implies that with age, we gain a certain wisdom that would have spared us a lot of grief when we were younger. Or that our business dealings would likely have been much more successful, if only we had been less naive and more knowledgeable about how to do almost anything. If not everything.

Had you to do things all over again, but with the added option of opting out altogether--never playing the game to begin with--would you have decided not to participate? Again, the question seems nonsensical because it suggests that we might somehow have known beforehand, what was involved, what the stakes were, so to speak, versus the benefits.

For example, just to play along with the argument, suppose that after we die, we're given the choice of where to live next. On some other planet, let's say, in some other dimension, amid some exotic plane of existence, perhaps, one that we cannot possibly imagine. But this time around, we have two important choices open to us: which place we consider as the most appealing, or simply to cease existing altogether. In other words, we can choose to live nowhere at all if none of the selections suits our fancy, at which time we just vanish from the playing field. No muss, no fuss.

In order to make such a decision, we would no doubt want to know all the particulars. Based on our past experiences on Earth, would we once again live a life subject to excruciating pain? That would do it for me, right then and there. No more physical pain; otherwise, count me out.

Persons who may have lived a previous life relatively free of pain and discomfort, including a mostly peaceful death, might well consider the trade-off of misery and ecstasy to be worth the effort. I would argue, however, that most would not. Ask the same question of an adult who lived in Africa and knew only pain and starvation. Or someone who barely survived a life of deprivation while living under a cruel and despotic ruler. Given the choice of another lifetime with no guarantees, and where one were subject to the same or similar conditions, the matter of choosing to hang around for another go-around should involve no real hesitance or deliberation whatsoever.

Ask someone in this temporary nether-region, who had previously suffered from cancer or some other disease and died a prolonged and painful death, whether or not they might be willing to risk a repeat of the same, albeit in some other manner, shape, or form. Entreat these same folks as to how anxious they would be to start over again, only to lose friends and family to terrible, tragic circumstances, including themselves lying helplessly, hopelessly in horrific, unimaginable pain, both physical and mental.

Or maybe they might get lucky this next time around. It's not a certainty that things should go poorly or result in some form of anguish. We just need to know ahead of time that, among the possible outcomes of living a new life, is how great happiness, joy, love, and pleasure, is always balanced by their opposites. We don't get the one without the other. And akin to a "roll-of-the-dice", we will awaken amid any number of possible circumstances. Maybe good, maybe bad. Maybe horrendous. With death in some form, once more our only way out. Our only escape from what is either a Heaven or a Hell.

I don't remember being offered the chance, beforehand, to study the conditions on this place we call planet Earth. I possess no personal recollection of examining a checklist of the good versus the negative. Gains weighed against losses, after which I could then make an informed decision as to whether or not I wished to experience this thing known as life. Especially when the caveat is included that, once born, I might just as easily grow up hungry in Africa, or live under tyranny, or be stricken with some dread disease, as not. Again, it's that whole roll-of-the-dice, luck-of-the-draw thing.

Ladies and gentlemen, please step up and place your bets. 'Round and 'round she goes, where it stops, nobody knows. Still wanna play? What would you have answered, way back when, knowing then what you know now? Be born on Earth, or wait for the next bus? Or just tear up your ticket once and for all?

I've lived a fairly decent life. And still don't know how it will end ultimately. We hope the end is fast and relatively free of discomfort. And even I, having lived in America, never knowing real hunger or thirst, though some real pain here and there--both physical and mental, but nothing compared to so many others--would have to admit to a degree of hesitation given the option of retracing my steps. Add to that the idea that a do-over could result in my being born anywhere at any time, and I think my answer should be fairly obvious. Which is to exclude me--categorically. Absolutely. I want no part of any of it. I've seen enough of the miseries in this particular world, despite its deceptive beauty and grandeur.

Were an "undo" possible, I'd like to think that an abortion might return me to the star dust from whence I came. It was only by the queerest quirk of fate that I was born to begin with. Could I do so gracefully, I'd like to ask my parents if they felt they were doing me a favor by bringing me into the world. Did they do it for me or for themselves? Does any parent feel they're making some great sacrifice or bestowing some marvelous gift upon the "fruit of their loins"? I think the answer is a combination of both.

My parents didn't know me before I was me. Nobody asked my opinion, or if I would want to be born--had I known what I was getting into. What of the child who suffers a dreadful disease and dies a hundred years before his or her time? Who asked him what he wanted? What parents hold themselves responsible for bestowing suffering upon a child, as well as the possible alternative of a long life filled with family, friends, and financial success? Such questions make no sense and would be extremely unfair if actually posed. For the whole system is rigged. We take it all for granted. As if it was the natural order of things.

But it isn't! Only birth, death, and the instinct for survival are the natural order of things, and only then, it's because life evolved in the way with which we're all familiar, and not in some other way. Which it likely did elsewhere, on other worlds. Or within other dimensions of existence.

Equally fascinating is how concepts that surround the hypothetical process of reincarnation, incorporate the notion that human souls, prior to birth, do indeed make certain choices. Sometimes these are preordained based on how one lived their previous life. In other situations, a soul may voluntarily decide to enhance its enlightenment by purposely choosing one way of life over another-- by being born into conditions which provide an environment necessary for emotional and mental growth.

It's an interesting theory and not that different from what is discussed in this article. The major discrepancy, however, is in reference to "in the beginning". For example, a brand new soul which has no prior experience or knowledge to draw upon. Is birth into a human body some kind of mandatory reward, or is it a punishment? The soul who conforms to my conundrum would be informed--briefed as it were--of all the pros and cons of life on earth. Only afterward, and strictly by its own decision one way or another, would that soul agree to the risks involved and opt for its own birth. Even then, the negative odds that one's life would be full of miseries, deprivations and depravities alike, are overwhelmingly in opposition to anything better. And yet souls allegedly choose lives, more frequently than not, that oblige their human hosts to lifetimes of pain and suffering. What kind of childish nonsense is this?

I, for one, if able to confront these mythical entities, would love to punch them in the mouth, to slap them senseless for obligating me or anybody else to live a certain way. Which is usually in the worst ways possible. But the idea is worth expanding upon because it encapsulates the grievance I feel over this business of informed consent, and the lack thereof when it comes to our being conceived.

And once brought into the world, through no fault or volition of our own, we find ourselves imprisoned like some death row inmate slated for execution at some vague, unspecified moment. Other than the impassioned gratitude one might feel about an infant who is born free of any immediate infirmity, I don't see childbirth as being all that worthy of any grand celebrations. That we might share in the happiness such events bring to the parents of newborns, is both understandable and to be expected. But when we examine these births more closely, free of the emotionalism attached to them, things are not quite so straightforward as they might seem otherwise.

In the original movie, Planet of the Apes, with the actor Charlton Heston, a quote from early in the film hears him remark, "Somewhere in the universe, there must be something better than man." Likewise, upon my death, and if offered the chance to live again, my response would be, "Anywhere but Earth. Thank you."