Yes, it has been a time of reflection. I’m sorry if you’ve heard all this before, but I’ve been mulling Keith’s opinion; the one where he said that you have to live a complete life all the way to the end before your soul is upgraded to one of a higher calibre for the next time you pass through. I don’t take issue with it so much, as starting to wonder whether that outcome is as bad as he made it sound. I think that previous versions of me have always succumbed to the pressure to kill themselves in the end, and none of us have seen a complete cycle through yet. And, as I write, this one’s no better. I know of myself, that every important decision I have ever made is wrong; everything I’ve ever attempted to do, has either been left behind unfinished, or failed. I guess that each of us get to about this stage in life, and with our propensity to reflect, having failed to heed our errors during the last lap round, find ourselves in the same position of hopelessness, with no idea how to get out of it – recognising that we have another twenty years ahead of us, under-resourced, now bereft of that neutron of expectation with which we justified our delusions, and accept the conclusion that all is lost, and it’s time to do throw the towel in.
I may have said that before, but now as I hear those words again, this time they feel real in a way that they haven’t before. I accept that I am now on the last lap, and that the triumph of my life, will be to get to the end of it without dying by my own hand.
Keith and I would talk about how we’d end it, were we able to access the means. He would hang, but I would opt for carbon monoxide poisoning in the comfort of a four-door sedan. Neither of us would jump off anything on the basis that you could fall before you’re ready. Nor would we opt for a drink and drugs-based exit, it being too much of a hit and miss affair. All that fuzzy nausea and soiled pants. And the vomit! Then it doesn’t quite work out, and suddenly you’ve got some real practical issues to resolve when you come back round. Slashing wrists? I said I could, but Keith said I couldn’t. Same drowning – I think I’d be a natural, but he disagreed.
‘You’re not brave enough,’ he told me, ‘And look how much you dislike suffocating.’
He had a point.
‘Besides which,’ he added, ‘You’d get a longer sentence in purgatory.’ It was bad enough when he had us having to try and complete another cycle of life, and now he’s adding an extended purgatory into the mix? That can’t be right.
I tell him that I’m excused that part because I’ve already built up so many credits on earth.
It’s all very well talking about these things in the abstract, but until the actual moment arrives, who knows how you’ll act? It’s like shouting out, “[insert name of boss] is a retarded ponce,” in a crowded office – only some of us can do it when push comes to shove. I wonder, though, if you took the easy option of the carbon monoxide exit, would you play songs on your way out, and what difference might that make? And if so, which? On the face of it sad ones seem the most appropriate, but I’m not so sure. Sad songs are all about evoking regret, and death by your own hand, is perhaps the first positive thing you have ever done with your life. You don’t want to bring the mood down. I think I’d go out to a Genesis track, or Bruce Springsteen, or something even worse, so that you had no regrets about leaving the earth and all its mediocrities. Then you’d just have to hope that you died before having to listen to it all the way through.
I wonder though, what Keith meant about extended purgatory and how that fits with this notion of having to go round again? Perhaps you get a pep-talk? But it can’t be anything too useful because the whole ethic’s about you doing it for yourself, isn’t it?
The more I think about it, the more I see it as a walk-in clinic where you sit on a white plastic chair and watch a re-run of your life on video, second by second. You’d have a kindly and wise, but exacting sort stood at your shoulder, watching it with you, making observations. Ideally, they’d have the latest software that allowed them to show you what would have happened if you’d made correct choices. But all that would depend on what sort of package you had in place. Pay your dues, attend temple, and say your prayers and you get the Gold-package; believe but half-arsed about attendance, the Frankincense. People like me, might get in on a Myrrh on the basis that we’ve been to the odd christening, and know the lyrics to hymns. Otherwise, it’s the video cassette review awaiting you.
Yes, this is how it must work. And you’re denied the re-run entirely, if you die by your own hand; thereby forcing you to do it all over again. That way, only once you’re brave enough to complete a cycle, do you get to access the service in which you analyse what went wrong, improve your lot, and give the next version of yourself a better chance next time round. I see what he means now. It’s quite a good system.
Dickie White's Diary 