Speaking of dogs, I wonder: if a dog is just about to be ran over by a car and you suddenly save her, would she be aware she almost became roadkill? Would she be shaken afterwards, replaying endlessly in her mind what could have just happened? Would she be grateful? Would she even understand what you just did for her? Could that be as life changing a moment for her as it could be for a person?
More than the past, the present, or the future, our true home as humans is the could. Even more, it is only by reflecting in it the past, the present, and the future that we can see them clearly. A near-death experience — an unhappening in other words — could well be a turning point in our lives, rearranging in one fell swoop our past, present and future. Could matters to us, its phantasmagoria walks among us, and it is or, fittingly, could be, a major component of every single issue that we care about.
Consider abortion
One important problem with it is that even if you don’t consider an early fetus alive or aware, by impeding its growth you’re stumping the future possibility of a very alive and aware being. What are the rights of the inhabitants of could? The ingredients of a cake don’t make a cake until mixed and baked but how can a human not look at flour, eggs, and butter and not see the cake?
Consider sex
Imagine we come up with something to prevent absolutely all STDs and unwanted pregnancies (we ain’t far). Would you still think of sex as something sacred? Would premarital sex or promiscuity still strike you as taboo? Would whores or pedophilia or incest still shock you? Would you consider sex as just one more source of meaning and pleasure, like, say, food? Next time you are shocked by something sexual consider this and realize how much of your shock hinges on pregnancy and STD considerations.
Consider death
What if, as has become increasingly likely the more we learn about biology and our bodies, we could stop it or at least hold it at bay much, much longer? What if we could reverse aging? Doesn’t that possibility merit our consideration? Shouldn’t helping this research or at least knowing about it be one of our top priorities? Who among the death scarred won’t cry could tears if the day comes when it becomes clear that death is not only defeatable but could have been defeated — should have been defeated — decades, centuries ago?
Could matters.
Aristotle famously said that the mark of an educated mind was being able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Personally, I think the mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain unrealities and see how they matter to reality, to be able to act and think dreams with open eyes.
(It is, by the way, my fascination with could that makes me a fan of science fiction and fantasy — could’s official literatures. Even more than sensawunda I crave sensacould.))
4 Comments
elzr, I can only hope you write and get published. Take care.
Human women are not cake. Women have the right to reproductive justice, and will not return to the dark days of reproductive prohibition, which was as successful in banning abortions as the alcohol prohibition was in banning alcohol. It just made abortions more hazardous and endangered womens’ lives.
TomH: Thanks!
Taylor: The metaphorical cakes here are the babies. :) Like you, I, too, believe abortions shouldn’t be banned. I wrote the could argument because it is one that very naturally comes to us as humans.To my mind, the decisions of a present woman trump an unborn could child, particularly when you realize that unborn could children are as infinite as are their unhappenings—you’ll find one in every sexual impulse you haven’t impregnated (or become so) upon.
The question thus is not if you’re stumping the possibility of a children (you are, so what?), the question is when does a growth of cells become a children—when are you no longer stumping a possibility but a reality? It’s a matter of definition and science and we can’t really answer it exactly now, but what we do know about it should determine how far along a pregnancy should abortion be legal.Bueno, por ahora tengo mi experiencia: estuve cerca de morir y perdi a mi bebe con 3 meses de gestacion y puedo decir que aunque han pasado ya 2 años de eso, hoy pienso, que perdi a mi hijo, que dejo de seguir existiendo una persona y no puedo evitar decir que eso sigue taladrandome el diafragma. Aunque hay algo que me parecio importante mencionar por tu consideracion del pastel, y es que no siempre lo vi como un ser consciente hasta que llego un momento en el que note que respondia a estimulos y comence a verlo como a mi. Sinceramente no puedo decir cuando dejamos de ser una celula mas y comenzamos a ser personas, y mucho menos cuando deberia de ser legal un aborto; pero puedo decir qe cuando sentimos empatia comenzamos a considerarnos como iguales.
Y claro que mi cercania con la muerte hizo que reconsiderara todo, tenia que hacerlo.
Con respecto a que un evento como la muerte pudiera despertar la conciencia en un animal… yo creo que ellos son, si no mas conscientes del peligro, si lo son de la vida misma y de su ciclo, creo que estan mas en riesgo y por lo tanto lidian con este tipo de experiencias mas amenudo de lo qe un humano como yo lo haria si viviera en sus condiciones. Pienso qe ven las cosas mas naturalmente y que el sexo, los desechos corporales y la muerte jamas serian no considerados como parte de su ciclo. Quiza habra que aprender como hacerlo. Sin embargo si tienes la oportunidad de salvar a cualquier tipo de vida, seria bueno que lo hicieras aunqe es probable qe no se de cuenta del tamaño del favor. Considera que los animales tienen formas muy sutiles de agradecer.
Considerando el sexo: Yo creo que el sexo es una deleintante fuente de energia que, no podria compararse con el placer de comer (me atrevo a pensar que eres goloso uhm?) ni aun dejando de lado "efectos no deseados" como una ETS o un embarazo. Pienso que siempre sera un acto que debe considerarse especial debido a la cantidad de energia que genera y a su importancia en la continuidad de la vida de cualquier especie. En lo que si pude pensar como realidad es en que si las personas vieran el sexo como una fuente segura, abierta y comun de placer ( y agregando la aceptacion y conciencia de nuestro origen) seguro dejarian de persignarse cada vez qe alguien encuentra a otro hojeando una revista "XXX", o de sonrojarse al sorpenderse teniendo fantasias sobre… I don't know …food over someone's breast/butt? maybe
En cuanto a la consideracion de la indefinida prolongacion de la vida, uff, pude imaginarme lo lucrativo que resultaria tu negocio.
Tu a que renunciarias por la inmortalidad?
Buena foto, una vez vi un film de una chica que tenia una fijacion con fotografiar "muerte". It's call Abnormal Beauty,I don't remember how it ends.
Buena suerte, buena vibra