©By Robert Dick

(From The Prometheus Society's Journal, Gift of Fire Issue No. 31, July 1988. This memory was provided by Fred Vaughan who considers it among his favorite Gift of Fire articles. It is perhaps the article responsible for my having associated myself with other members of this Society. There is humanity here one must applaud.)

I told a friend that I have been wondering lately what it is like to be dead. She said that was understandable, as I am the right age for a midlife crisis (44) and am closer to death, most likely, than to birth. My thought processes having been so blessed, I continue with it.

I do not believe in reincarnation. Having no memory of past life is the same to me as being a new and different person. I don’t believe in heaven and hell. This life is sufficient, I believe, to conduct all of one’s morality, even God’s. Cruelty is an abomination; that God is eternally cruel I find a despicable concept. But what of heaven? Well, what we do now determines what happens to us in heaven. It is this life that makes a difference, and all the making of difference is in this life. Therefore, heaven lacks significance, hence is less heavenly than life on earth.

No, our little life rounded by a sleep is enough. And now my midlife crisis sense of urgency asks, what difference am I making? How can I make a difference before it is too late? Help right overcome wrong, that is what I want to do. My employment is concentrated on military electronics, by choice. I may yet help the Free World stave off the totalitarian assault. I write a lot of letters to the editor. People may not agree, but they shouldn’t be able to say they weren’t warned.

Perhaps I am a little barbaric. I see life as fundamentally a fight. Perhaps it should be fundamentally an artistry. Make something beautiful for God, says Malcolm Muggeridge. Someday, God willing, fighting will be a thing of the past, and where will that leave my contribution – on the dustheap of history? No. In the cool of the evening it will be well to venerate those who bore the heat of the day. I want to be venerable. A noble aim to head into old age with.

What is death? This eye on the world will close. The inside and the outside will be severed, and with it all vision of the inside of itself. Void. Just as I know of all things through this corporeal frame, so will I know nothing. Shudder. I like to think there is a living being in back of everything, including me. That being’s eye will never close, and so the world will always go on. Here I am, a little strand teased out of the great rope of being. The strand ends, the rope goes on. The strand, if it is wise, will contribute to the strength of the rope, and not just protrude from it.

So what now? I do not want to divorce my wife or change my job. I don’t want to move to a new house. I do want to meditate more and for now try to be more of a source than a sink. I want to live so that God is proud of me. "Behold my servant Robert," He may say to the adversary. "My beloved son," may He say to me.

"He fought the good fight." There are worse epitaphs.