You know that song "Imagine" by John Lennon? Every time I hear it, I think of a world falling apart. Imagining there's no heaven, it is easy to try. I've done it before. I imagined there was no hell, no consequences, no government, no religion, nothing to own, nothing to work for, no reason to fight. At first, I agreed. Maybe we don't need the things we thought we did. I thought maybe there was no point to clawing my way through life, because even if there was heaven, nothing from this world would go with me. And what if there was only darkness afterwards?
In that moment, however, I lay staring into the face of death. It was beautiful and terrifying in the same second. It was cold and yet so warmly inviting. I could feel its hands trying to grasp me. I could hear the whisper to meet my fate. It sang softly, lulling me out of mortal pain, coaxing me into the growing blackness.
My sight was fading, the only sound was my own rapid heartbeat. At first, I let myself slip a little at a time. Then, I began to panic about being right and wrong; about my place in the cosmos. Was I really going to fade into nonexistence? Would I feel myself decay? What would happen to my memory? I tried to sort it out with both religion and science, recalling as much as I had been taught about either.
Then it all became clear. Even if there was no God, no Kingdom beyond this life, the universe worked with purpose. Everything had cause and effect, up and down; physically, there was no way to exist without sending some sort of energy radiating through all of existence.
I reflected on my past. What kind of energy had I sent out? Not one of any positivity. For all of my two decades on the planet, I had only two memories that didn't cause pain. What, then, would resound back? Everything that had made me miserable in my life.
It was that thought, that fear of nothingness, of destruction, slamming back into everything, that gave me the will to change my world. It was that thought that lead to the unraveling of my sorrow.
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