Why do you think I am doing this? Why am I writing posts for this blog? Why am I making music? Why am I writing books? Why am I making videos? What’s the point? Why am I exposing myself to so much ‘heat’? What is it I want?
First some music:
We all have different priorities in life. Some just want to live as comfortably as they can. Others want ‘success’, whatever that means today. Some care about fame and fortune. I care about posthumous fame.
‘What’s the point?’, you might wonder. Why would I want fame that I will never be able to see or appreciate in any way?
Well, as I see it, the best we can do is to base everything we do on the assumption that we will be reborn in the kin, that we will – after we have died – return as our children’s children, or as their children, or as the children of somebody else we are related to. Whether we actually do or not is completely irrelevant; what matters is that we either believe that we do, or that we at least pretend to believe that we do and then base everything on this world view.
If we all had such a world view, we would not ruin our planet as we know it, we would not destroy what is good in our world or turn our world into a Hell on Earth, ruled by lying, perverse and greedy madmen, to be sorted out by those who come after us. No. We would instead worry more about the future and take steps to ensure that life also for those who come after us will be good, right, just and healthy.
What I do is to ensure that if I return some time in the future, the most important of what I know today, of what I learned in this life, will pass on to the future me, so that I don’t have to re-learn all of this the hard way. I wont have to re-interpret our mythology and read all those often boring books that I had to read to be able to get the knowledge base needed for me to write. I want to hand over my knowledge to my future self, so to speak.
Yes, the fame, or if you like infamy, I accumulate in this life will ensure that the future me will get to know about me, so that I can easily and fast re-learn the most important things I knew in this life. Hence I worry more about my posthumous fame than I do about fame. Fame matters no whit, unless it is also posthumous. I will not return to life until after I am dead, after all.
The ‘heat’ I generate in life, to put it that way, contributes to my posthumous fame. Yes, it also makes life for me so much harder and much less comfortable, but that is a price I am willing to pay. Because I know – or if you like; believe or just pretend I believe – that my posthumous fame matters so much more, and this fame is actually nourished by the ‘heat’.
When I die, my memory will be left amongst the living, and therefore when I return to life, I can return to myself, and continue living where I left the last time. Thus I not only can live forever, but I can accumulate experience and wisdom, and start each new life on increasingly solid ground. True greatness is not achieved in one single lifetime. You need to ‘save up’.
HailaR WôðanaR!
