Thursday, August 30, 2007

Filmmaker confronts mortality with "Diving Bell" - Yahoo! Canada News

Timely. I think I will keep the garden at the top of my to do list, and I will move a little slowly through it, just to marvel at the shape and heft of a squash, at the silky texture of an onion scape, at life.

5 comments:

Tim Hodgens said...

Laura,

Thanks for posting the link about the new movie.

A friend of mine, who spoke French as his first language, died last year. He had much fear of dying until just several weeks before his death.

If I had one wish for someone to accompany me to the movie, it would be him. We would then talk for hours and hours.

Tim

arcolaura said...

Our fears are interesting, aren't they? Two of the common powerful fears: fear of dying and the unknown beyond, and fear of ghosts. But from all my indirect experience of ghosts, I would say they are more likely to communicate than to actually physically influence anything, and by communicating, couldn't they give some answers about the unknown beyond?

Tim Hodgens said...

Laura,

You should add public speaking to your short list.

Most people deal with it by steadfastly avoiding any situation where they would have to get up and speak in front of a group.

Tim

arcolaura said...

Yes, I've heard about that one. It's quite foreign to me, though - I just love a microphone. A new friend once commented that it was a sort of Jekyll and Hyde thing, to watch me switch from my quiet everyday self to my bold confident stage persona.

I didn't intend that as a top-of-the-list listing - it just occurred to me that many of us can be quite illogical in our thinking about death and afterlife and so on. Myself included. As I wrote that comment, I was also thinking that the simplest explanation for our inability to know much about an afterlife would be that there isn't one. But I still don't believe that.

Tim Hodgens said...

Laura,

I saw a line in a novel today. Scene was during WWII in the South Pacific during the battle for the Islands.

A soldier asks a Sister: Do you really believe that there is an aferlife?

She replies: Yes, I firmly believe that. Whether it is true or not, only God knows.

The soldier could not think of a single thing to say, so he said nothing.

I feel like that soldier. I enjoy these conversations.

Tim