The Fear of Death

From the moment you enter the world gasping for that first breath, the clock starts ticking down. As of that first moment, your existence and experience of life gets shorter.

It’s a grim way of looking at the gift of life, but it’s one that many prescribe to. You may not be staring death in the face right now, but it’s a voice that will always be whispering in the back of your mind. We know how fragile life can be, and we lack the soothsaying power to foresee our future demise, so this unknown conclusion keeps us on edge, and possibly fearing the worst.

So why do we fear the inevitable?

There can be many reasons to fear death, but I see the most prominent being:
1. You still feel the need to accomplish certain things.
2. You do not relish the idea that your consciousness or self will be lost and forgotten.
3. You have regrets for things you have done in your past that are left without closure.

*There is more to come. I’m just not able to keep my eyes open enough right now to keep writing haha. To be continued…

Identity – Part 2

Cultural Identity

I am a second generation Canadian, born in Ontario. My father was born in Quebec, while my mother was born in Nova Scotia. My grandparents from my father’s side are from Scotland and Wales, while my great grandparents from my mother’s side are from France. We all have our lineage, and it is often through that lineage that we develop a sense of cultural identity or a sense of belonging.

I cannot stress enough how important the community is for humanity. The survival of our species has depended and relied on the community throughout history for support in all aspects of life. “No man is an island” and no person carries existence alone (at least not in our lifetime or in any earlier time in human history).

We come into this world struggling to find our place, and we often seek refuge with those who find themselves in a similar position…misery, and happiness for this matter, enjoys company. But what happens when your cultural identity is not as clearly defined as others? We’ve all heard the term ‘melting pot.’ We inhabitants of North American have been countlessly reminded of our prosperous lands that entice so many from a far.

I see evidence of converging worlds everyday in the city of Vancouver where I now live. People who were once considered visual minorities, now form a great majority of society. And there are two outcomes from cultural identity that I’ve noticed stem from this growth of diversity. Firstly, there is the obvious adaptation of the first generation Canadians. These individuals find themselves stuck in between, or linking the gap between the traditions and customs of their parents and their new society. Secondly, in a diverse society, there is a greater prospect for biracial couples. And the children of a biracial couple (like the first generation children) will also find themselves searching for cultural identity in a world that is not so black and white.

The complex issue for first generation Canadians (or any other first generation nationality), is that traditions and customs are relative to specific cultures. So these individuals will most likely find themselves constantly dancing between their home life and their social life. Ideas of ‘the norm’ can get lost in this battle between the two, because neither is right or wrong, just different. For some, the struggle may be more difficult then others; it just depends on how well adapted the parents are to the new society. In this case, the battle for these individuals to define their cultural identity is more psychological, and can result in a hybrid perspective between two mentalities; but may also cause great challenges from feelings of separation from others in society, or from thoughts of not fitting in. The burden can be even greater when language barriers are built, and the parents depend on their children to become personal translators, having them learn and speak the native tongue, while they remain limited to the language they immigrated with.

As for a biracial child, the struggle between worlds can be both psychological and physical. Like the first generation child, the biracial child may deal with a collision of traditions and customs (having two racially different parents), but will also have to deal with having a physical appearance which may not be clearly defined. The race they tend to associate with, will mostly likely relate to the influence of their parents.

Though the biracial child may tend to side with one race over the other, they can also be tied between the two. When tied between the two, the feeling of partial acceptance may arise, and lead to thoughts of being an outsider. When you cannot visually associate yourself completely to either race, then a new racial identity is formed, and it is possible that an identity crisis, or definition, or both, will follow. The greatest difficulty for a biracial child will be overcoming this feeling of not being accepted, or fully a part of either related race. And again, the obstacles become both physical and psychological.

Visual association is a key component to our psyche and to our survival. Accurately or inaccurately, we perceive, categorize and pass judgement on everyone we meet. If you did not have the ability to differentiate between potentially dangerous people and harmless people, then you’d have a lower chance of survival. It’s also the case, in most occasions, that we naturally or instinctively trust those with whom we associate to people in our memory. If you’ve had little contact with a visually different person or race, then you’ll most likely be unsure of what to expect, or even worse, presume or expect a cultural stereotype which cannot be universally accurate.

For an example of visual association, think of a Chinese immigrant who is shopping in a Canadian store and needs some assistance. He/she will most likely feel more comfortable speaking to another person of Chinese decent for help. He/she prefers someone of the same race, because those are the type of people he/she is used to being in contact with.

Our melting pot society has changed visual association for the children now growing up in a culturally diverse society. Children who are exposed to many different people and races will have a vast number of visually different people to associate memories towards. However, it is often the case that immigrating parents don’t always give themselves the chance to integrate into their new society. People and families tend to move into areas with others of the same culture, and surround themselves with comfortable similarities, where they don’t often have much contact with racially different people, and may not even learn the native language. This makes things easier for immigrants in the short term, but over a long period of time, they are only distancing themselves further from the society they inhabit, and potentially distancing themselves from their own children who have integrated into in the new society.

Cultural identity will always be present, but will most likely get more complex. Soon the great majority of children will have a web of connecting nations to explain their cultural history. The challenges are most difficult on the first generation and biracial children, but through overcoming barriers, these children are defining a new world. By integrating change into their life, they become creators of hybrid social norms and practices. They show us what the world looks like when we move past skin deep assumptions and reach new levels of beauty.

The community will live on, and will only widen to accept the converging nations that inhabit this lovely little world. Your cultural identity is unique, so love it, learn from it, and share it.

Identity – Part 1

I agreed by request to write about a topic I haven’t spend much time reflecting on; and I found myself tackling a subject with many sides to its story. In the paragraphs that follow, I will attempt to introduce two concepts of identity, as briefly as I can. The first will surround the mystery of personal identity, and the second, which will be posted next week, will deal with the more social form of cultural identity.

Personal Identity

Personal identity asks the question, “Who are YOU?” or “Who am I?”

Are you just ‘YOU’ now in the present? Can you also be ‘YOU’ in the past at lets say 5 years old? And can you also be ‘YOU’ in the future 30 years from now? The immediate response most people consider is, “I’m ME. Throughout my entire life it’s just ME.” We find it hard to consider that so much changes in an individual over the duration of time, and that who ‘YOU’ are can mean being a person who is completely different or completely unique many times throughout the course of your life.

There’s a common philosophical example that is often used to depict this thought. Imagine you own a boat, and every day you replace one piece of the boat with a new part, and with each old piece you take out, you slowly construct an identical boat to be donated and placed in a museum. Eventually you replace every part, and there are two identical boats. One you continue to own and sail on the water with, while the other stands still behind glass for others to observe in the museum; but which is your boat? Is it the sum of the new parts which you now use to sail the waters, or is it the sum of the old parts which now stand in the museum like a picture in a frame?

The human body continually reproduces cells and tissue. Psychologically our minds evolve to grasp new perspectives on life, while shedding old views that are no longer necessary or relevant. So once again, who are YOU? It doesn’t seem logical to say you can own both the old boat and the new boat at the same time when one is no longer in your possession. Or in other words, we can’t be both our 5 year old self, and our self in the present at the same time.

It’s at this point where some people may find the urge to resort to supernatural beliefs in an eternal spirit or soul, but for a coherent and logical discussion we must remain within the knowable, and not seek refuge in the fantasy.

It is possible that our biological and mental makeup can change so drastically over the course of our lives that we become completely different people who remain linked only through memories and the illusion of a continued self through our subjective perspective. Meaning, we can’t notice any change in personal identity, because it’s too gradual for us to notice since we are always trapped in our self. However, it is noticeable to an observer.

If you were to meet your elementary school teacher now as an adult, after not having seen him/her since grade 2, from the perspective of your old teacher, you would most likely be a completely different person. But even more startling and apparent examples can be seen in Alzheimer’s patients. This generalized degenerate disease progressively deteriorates the brain so quickly that the parent, grandparent, or friend who suffers from the disease can become someone completely different right before your eyes. You want so desperately for them to be the same person you’ve known for so long, but they’re not, because those qualities that we attribute to identity have changed.

From what we know about personal identity, we progress into different people throughout our life; but I would like to emphasize the word ‘progression.’ Though we may be different from our previous selves, we will remain connected to our past through progression.

A good example of progression is seen when we think of a photocopier. If we start with an original drawing, then copy it, and continue to copy the following copy on and on etc…each copy will be slightly different from the previous one, and eventually we will be left with a design on paper that doesn’t resemble the original drawing, yet still originated from it.

We all originate from one point, and that point determines the natural evolution of our self and our personal identity. Through the course of our lives, we may be many different people, but we will remain forever connected to each unique self through the progression that brought us there.

So, to answer the original question of “Who are YOU?” or “Who am I?”

‘YOU’ are whoever you are when you ask the question. You were your past self, you will be your future self, but you are your present self.

Love

You enter the room as your eye catches a figure that strikes the very chord that rings through to your deepest desires. Intoxicated from his/her presence, your heart beats fast enough for two, and your breath escapes your lungs before you can control it. You tell yourself, “Remember to breathe.” You catalog and scrutinize your every word and action. It’s truly an out of body experience, and all you wish to do while you’re free from your body is to climb inside his/her mind and see how they’re looking at you.

You somehow make it through these awkward uncertainties of lust, and find yourself learning a new life. You weigh the things you have in common with the things you don’t, and try to remember as much information as you can, because it shows you’re paying attention, and so it doesn’t come back to haunt you in next week’s pop quiz.

You get lost in his/her eyes, smile for no reason, and you can’t stop thinking about them. You think about them at work, on the commute, while you’re eating your wheaties…you stay awake at night thinking about them, and when you finally get to sleep, you dream about them.

Your lives start melding together to the point where you know everything that’s going on in their day, and if there’s a sudden change or event that happens, you’ll get the news instantly via text message. Your friends slowly come to terms with the idea that there’s less of your time to go around, and hopefully understand cause they’ve been there before, or at least wish they could be there.

You think about your future together, what he/she will look like in 30 years, what your kids would look like, what your names look like next to each other, etc…but you DO NOT tell them, because you don’t want to freak them out with serious thoughts too soon.

Finally you get to a comfortable place where you know all their stories, all their history, all their quirky habits, and you feel like they fit so well with you. And you wonder where they’ve been all your life, and you wonder if they could be the person who you’ll walk with for the rest of your life, and you wonder how you could ever tell them just how much they mean to you. And you do the best you can, when you whisper the words…

“I love you.”

Love has so many different uses and meanings. People love books, and trees, children, and ice cream, dreaming about what could be, and remembering what was…but love is just a word that attempts to capture a feeling rooted in the nature of a relation between people and things.

Biology tells us that we perceive an external stimuli which effects our brain functions, causing the hypothalamus to produce peptides, that travel to our receptor cells giving us a specific sensation. In turn, we relate that sensation to the person or thing that caused it, and our memory creates a link between the two. So whenever you sense or think of that special person or thing, you can recreate that sensation.

Now that’s great and all, but for some reason love seems to be more than a chemical reaction. Love is so allusive and versatile that it represents more than a feeling. It signifies devotion, sacrifice, trust, commitment, and so much more than mere peptides.

So how do you define a word entrenched in subjective interpretation?

The true meaning of love rests without words inside of you. No dictionary or blog can encapsulate the depths of your mind. Only you can experience the love you feel. Only you can grasp the awe inspiring complexities rooted deep within a simple phrase like…

“I love you.”

The Meaning of Life

Here we are. Wrapped up together in this little thing called life. What’s it all about? What are we doing here? We so desperately want answers, but is it even possible to know or fathom?

I find the majority of people find solace and comfort in the belief of an answer. That somehow answering an unanswerable question makes existence bearable. Demystifying the unknown drives our self conscious selves to theorizing, hypothesizing, believing, or conjuring a thought or idea to get us by.

…so where am I going with this?

My intent is to unveil the shroud drawn over the question at hand…”What is the meaning of life?”

The confusion comes from the term meaning. With meaning we imply purpose or cause; but purpose and cause are not possible without intent. This is where most look upwards, palms held firmly together, whispering words to a greater being that can provide them with the universal intent they seek. God is a one stop shop for providing answers. The meaning of life becomes easy…live life in accordance to god’s rules and you’ll gain access into the kingdom of heaven (This is of course the Judeo-Christian concept of god). The goal is plainly set out for the religious. But the simplicity ends there, because trying to explain the nature and existence of god just leads to more questions and even more abstract answers, and belief eventually boils down to faith.

For those of us who can’t muster up the irrational reasoning needed for faith, the question of meaning in life remains open. Now let’s not all fall hopelessly down the eternal pit of nihilism. With god out of the picture, we become the creatures of meaning. There need not be a purpose written in the fabric of space and time to suit the simple existence of we few humble Homo sapiens. We can create our own meaning, and often already do based on our desires. We are led into action by our goals and dreams in life. And we often look at those who reach their goals, and see a successful individual.

The downside to a goal driven existence is that though there are winners, there will most certainly be losers as well. It’s important to remember that if you are the creature of meaning, it’s all up to you, and you can always win. It’s unfortunate, but people can’t often see this, or they latch onto an unattainable desire, and when it’s not met, depression and apathy sets in. Also, reaching your goal (I use the terms goal and meaning interchangeably with regards to what drives the individual) in life can have a similar effect to the so called ‘losers’, because what’s left to live for after you’ve served your purpose…

Thus, it is beneficial to make meaning into a win win circumstance. Choosing abstract goals like happiness, love, pleasure, etc…will provide you with unending purpose in life, that you can always obtain and always continue to strive towards.

Remember that how you look at the question and attempt to answer it speaks volumes about your nature. You are what you seek to become. If you are unsure about what drives you in life, then you will be confused, wandering, or just a spectator. If you hopelessly desire that which will never be, then you’ll have distaste for that which is. And if you find meaning the abstract simplicities that surround you, then life will feel like a warm summer breeze.

So what is the meaning of life?

…it’s up to you.

Open your eyes…

It’s time to wake up from your slumber. Let the cool water rush over your face and revitalize your senses. Let’s try to look at the world for what it is. Let’s gain some perspective.

I don’t know how others perceive me, but I do know they can’t experience the internal workings of my mind. My intent with this blog is to provide you with full access to my writing, which will reflect my thoughts and ideas on life.

My name is Andrew MacFarlane, and I am on an unending journey for truth and knowledge. I have a degree in philosophy with a minor in film studies from Carleton University, and I am currently in pursuit of my dreams. I hope to be a successful actor, writer, artist, creator, and human being; but will settle for the latter if the others don’t come to fruition 🙂

I hope you enjoy what I have to say, and I hope you find new perspectives on life through my writing. You don’t have to agree with me; all I ask is that you think with me. And I’ll be happy to here what you think, so leave a comment or send a message my way.