My obsession as many of you will perhaps have guessed by now is story telling, whether verbal or through books or film. It has been an interest of mine for a long time. I am still trying to work out to a certain extent why we do this. What it does for us.

So far what I have come up with is this. If the world irs made purely of ideas and thought then stories are the building blocks with which we express those thoughts. A kind of laboratory of words and concepts. One of the problems with this is that sometimes that lab is taken over by folks with their own agenda. We won't go into that one here:)

In the context of the afterlife discussion what I was wondering was this:

Is death a central part of our storytelling traditions?

Take for example Romeo and Juliet. Would the story lose some of its feeling with the notion that the two lovers lived on after death?

There seem to be lots of other examples where surviving death would make a big difference to the story.

So if there is storytelling in the afterlife does it still involve death?

Dave

    Greetings,
    In the afterlife I'm not sure how death could be considered tragic.  Maybe it would be more humorously seen, as in the sense that troubadours once told love stories and could laugh at/with the vagaries of life.  ;)  Maybe it's time to start learning to play a mandolin or lute for accompaniment.  :)
    Maybe on that side the tragic plots would be of people afraid to die, and how they maneuvered around their fate to avoid it.--?
    Before I'd heard of B Moen's looks into the afterlife, a sleeping musician whom I sat near on an airplane seemed to tell me that I would not be hearing any of his concerts until the afterlife, where he looked forward to singing. "What, like all the time?' I mentally asked, thinking he'd join some choir of heavenly angels singing eternal background MouZak. " No", he scoffed, "just maybe 3 or 4 times.  It's just like here." What he said then did not fit the view of the heaven or hell that I expected. I was so astounded by our mental conversation that I didn't continue and ask what kind of songs he'd sing, altho on earth he sings a usually joyous Christian rock.
      Do you think your attitude toward death, as seen from the other side, would be the same?

lol Dave you must have been Oscar Wilde in your past life!!

i do like your questioning though, it drives the ship forward.
And a very good question too - the crux of it being do we die in the spiritual world?

my thoughts are .. yes there must be death of the spiritual body in the spiritual realms.
and my reasoning is; we live a life of reversal.  What happens above happens below and what happens below happens above.

For example; when we sleep we are 'dead' to the physical world but awake in our home in the spiritual world.  When we are awake here we are 'dead' in the spiritual world.  That is part of us is;
we must take into consideration our Oversoul that cannot be 'dead'.

Although while awake in the physical world we attain to also be awake in the spiritual world.
So maybe while we are awake in the spiritual world we attain to be awake in the physical world. And this is the essence of survival?

mmm As above so below.

So, through death in the physical world we transform into the spiritual world - we go back home - but maybe home has moved now because we have reached higher attainment. We can always go and visit our old home though.

When we are in our spiritual home and feel the desire to come back to the physical there must be a death or at least a goodbye to our spiritual home when we start our journey back into matter.

it is forever the journey that gets us to where we should be.

also, yes ideas and thoughts do make up our existence but i say that these thoughts are very well thought through and are not whimsical ideas lol in otherwords there is a plot!

Life and tragidy makes for good storytelling. Imagine if the newspapers and all of daytime t.v. depicted the perfect stable people. How interesting.......watch them take thier multivitamins......
take out the garbage ....go to home depot then make it home to eat dinner and be in bed my nine........exciting stuff!!!!  

From what I have heard....people in the afterlife feel most alive when we consider them "dead". It is actually more depressing for people in the afterlife to witness one of thier loved ones making another trip to earth; for earth can be like heaven.....but nine times out of ten its more like hell! It is makes for good storytelling! Thats why we are down here.....to live out our begginings.....middles and ends......if you look at ones life....it is very much like a movie script...........we try to master our lessons and move on to become better souls........Death makes for wonderful storytelling because it always leaves the reader in suspence and wonder "what couldve been". Happy endings suck.......at least in the cinema........I would take titanic over a Meg Ryan Movie anyday!

Thank you for your responses. I think I would like to think that some of the skills I have picked up will be at least a little bit useful in the afterlife, as they don't seem to be so much use here:)

Betson, I wasn't sure how death would be seen in he afterlife, but had an inkling that it woudlnt have the kind of finality that is so accepted by many people here.

augoeideian, you helped to clairfy ne ot two things for me there with the idea of the spiritual death being the return to the physical.

Baby duck, I have to say I like a bit of Meg Ryan every now and again...my bad:) It is true though that life and death situations add to the tension of a story. I was just concerned that any fiction in the afterlife because of the perception of death might end up like the every day story of multivitamin taking you suggested:)

Dave

Dave....I beleive that would not be the case in my own opinion.....We come down to earth to experience....I beleive in a sense the ones up thier live vicariously through us......but I think I understand your point.....I beleive  the flipside theory......death is tragic to us cause we are missing parts of the story versus the complete picture they recieve in the afterlife........I beleive we go up their to experience a bit of a break....although we still have a purpose up thier.....I think they watch us and learn from our experiences.....maybe death would not have the impact  in storytelling that it would down here......that is an interesting thought.......you should ask them! But i when you get up thier....your writing expriences will intensify cause you get the complete picture....plus many other lifetimes to reflect on if you beleive in that type of thing.

baby duck, I will indeed ask them when I get a chance to. So far I haven't really made much of an effort of contacting anyone, or experiencing any of this. If anyone else gets the chance could they pop the question in to anyone they see about this whole death and storytelling biz. I would really appreciate it.

Having said about death being a big part of storytelling of course death and rebirth go hand in hand in mythology. Hmmmm...ponders.

Dave

I would say life, or to be more specific, drama, is the central part of our storytelling traditions.  Not death... or the deceasement of the body.

It is through human drama that all the various emotions can be experienced.  Love, hate, jealously, envy, pride, sadness, vengefulness, lust, etc.  Of coarse all emotions are warped aspects of love... even hate.  Fear is also an aspect of love that is warped by ego.

The only true emotion that transcends drama is love.  Expansiveness.  One could say that when love is seen through the prism of human drama/ego, you get all the others.

But life is more than just human drama.  If fact, one goal in the sandbox of life in the world is to transcend human drama.  "To be in the world, but not of it."

Human drama is a good teaching tool.  It can also be extremely fun to play with.  It can also be very addictive to the point that your total conciousness is consumed by it.  At which point, you really aren't growing.  You become faced with the same lessons over and over again, and never learn.

Mactek,

A very interesting and well reasoned post. I feel more reassured about the whole story thing now. Though I must confess I do have a real love of the human drama, which may as you say hold me back a little bit from my evolution.

Dave

Quote:

...which may as you say hold me back a little bit from my evolution

No, I didn't say that exactly.  Have fun with the drama.  It's important.  It's interesting.  It's why we are here.  It's apart of the evolution, as you say.   But when you have played with a particular lesson, don't be afraid to say "Okay, I understand this now.  I don't need to play with this anymore.  I've learned all I can from it."

Ah, understood:) Though I think it is one of those toys I am going to give up reluctanlty at some point in time. I think this is one of the lessons I have set myself. To work out why we do the whole story and entertainment  thing.

I was reading somewhere that Depak Chopra describes where was are as a "recreational universe."

Dave

So your fear is that at some point in the future, someone or some process (like death), is going to take your human drama toy box away?

RELAX!  Understand that ego is a source of this fear.  It doesn't want to let go of what it has fun with.

No one is going to take your toys away!!  But it is completely rational to say that at some point, you may outgrow them.  In fact, I imagine that there are some aspects of human drama that you have already outgrown.  And if faced with them again, you would find them annoying and they would probably get in the way of your other interests.

I think part of my fear is not knowing what those other interests will be:) One of the things I do like in this life is talking to people, so no doubt I will get to do a lot of that. There will be plenty to discuss. What a joy to be able to catch up with some of the wonderful people who have lived and made such an impression on our world. Or meet up with distant relatives.

I like the idea of travelling long distances and seeing new worlds, or even parts of this one I wont get round to see on this trip. I think my toys are the ability to be able to share this with other people. The way I have always seen this has been through books or films. There is probably a much better way of doing it on the other side.

There are still concepts my mind has to wrangle with:)

Dave