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I had a boyfriend who, after we broke up (and things were still rough), asked me if I had ever read a war book. I thought about it--hadn't I?--but found that it wasn't so. He nodded as though that was what he figured, and recommended that I read one.

What was that supposed to mean? Was reading a war book supposed to make up for some dearth in maturity? I'm also vaguely insulted that he figured I hadn't. What was it that 'tipped him off'? Grr. Note: to this day I still have not read a war book.

He claimed that war movies aren't the same, that they don't reach the level of intimacy that books do.

Wait--does Slaughterhouse Five count? I think he said it didn't count. It wasn't so much about war.

It makes me want to read a war book just to know what the freak he's talking about.

I was reminded of this because I decided to re-rent Gallipoli. I really should own this movie, considering the number of times I've seen it; but it is so freaking potent that something in me thinks it better that it not be kept in the house. It is one of (the very young) Mel Gibson's best acting jobs, and still the best war movie I have ever seen. I shan't say anything more for fear of ruining it.

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I noticed Joe was reading a book by Tolstoy--Confessions--and I asked him how it was, etc. Pretty good, he said; it was all his personal thoughts near the end of his life, after having written Anna Karenina and War and Peace. About how writing had never been really important to him and how he felt he had done nothing significant in this world.

He does a retrospective of his life. He recalls a time (and I'm quoting Joe here) "he was all about progress, how he thought all life was progress; but his later realization was that in an infinite scheme, progress is meaningless. So his question is, what has he done? What is the point? His own conclusion is that death is the point, because it's death that puts that question in our minds."

At the moment I don't feel like addressing death and 'the point'. But what got me thinking was the idea that 'progress' is meaningless in an infinite scheme.

Because my big trip is evolution, right? Which is just another kind of progress. In my opinion, the evolution of humans, and possibly the world-entity, is now happening all in the mind. It may not even be physically quantifiable. I love and treasure the idea that we can evolve ourselves within our lifetime. After much thought bordering on action, I've come to my conclusion that death is not necessarily the big mental leap we think it is--or rather that I thought it was--you see I was thinking that in dying we were given the ultimate freedom to realize our true selves in any way we desired. That in death we could become these totally amazing, totally enlightened, aware, evolved and fantastic beings that don't even need bodies, so advanced are we and so purely made of love. I thought probably that we needed death to become that, and once we realized the truth of it, we could just up and out.

But on the brink of it, in the heat of my desire for it, I realized: I have no idea what state of life I'm in. I could be dying completely every second, I could be in my 'dead' phase, I don't know. We have our definition of life, we don't know what death is--life and death just being words, concepts. There is life, but as of death we know only that it is just Not This.

Okay, I could go way way deeper into it, but my conclusion is this: that death will bring you nothing that life does not. That if in life, you are not capable of opening yourself to the world and creating yourself a better being, death will not do it for you; that if in life you cannot understand fabulous moments of beauty, death will not do it for you. Death is not some crazy doorway into your better self. You are your own doorway. And you choose to go through it yourself, living or dead. This or Not This.

There is no better world than the best one you can create in your mind. And so if you want that world, the idea, you see, is to work on your mind and its ability to realize that world, because death will not do it for you. Death may allow you to do things faster, but the work is still all within your mind.

So. I try to do that work for myself right now. This is where I get weird ideas like, "If we all lived life like we were dead, we could truly have our afterlife on earth." (I'm digressing hugely from my original point but I want to go with it.) I read in a book (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy for all you fans) of a character who went a little bit insane, and she thought she was in the afterlife. Only in this frame was she able to tell a man that she 'had loved him while she was alive', and she can tell him that now because they're in the afterlife, and there's nothing to worry about anymore. I mean, seriously, imagine that we have our heaven. Imagine that we were given heaven and were told, Do what you want, and this is what we are doing with it. I mean guys, guys, I think we can do a little better for each other.

But alright, yes, bringing it back to the original point I left so long ago, I do accept the premise that we are working within an infinite frame. And I personally happen to be all about progress. (Because I cannot be content. It is frickin' weird, but I cannot imagine a universe, a circumstance, a state of life in which I am simply content to be happy. There are moments in my life of pure happiness, and yes a moment is enough to fill infinity, and that's another confusing thing I can't quite work out; but I can't imagine a lasting state of complete contentment.) I must always be working towards/for/at/with the beauty. There must always be something more, or if not more, else.

So, god, BACK TO THE POINT! I am all about progress. I also believe we exist within infinity (Duh!). So, does the idea hold that all progress within infinity is meaningless? It doesn't feel meaningless. Perhaps it feels meaningFul simply because we are given the gift of finite viewpoints.

But I disagree that death is the point. Is the point of a room the doors that open into it?

Why in my mind is death represented by a men's car hat/beret? As I was half in and half out of sleep, this is what I saw, as I internally vocalized my thoughts about death.

2:58 a.m. 2004-02-21�

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