How lucky to have lived at all…

I’ve recently been listening to a bunch of philosophy lectures on the nature of death by a guy called Shelly Kagan. It’s been a total head-screw but in a good way I think. Tackling the fear of death, he concluded that it was in fact a fairly irrational fear to have, however common it may be. When exploring what the correct rational response should be, he suggested that sadness could be considered a rational emotion to feel. Sad about the fact that we will be deprived of all the good things in life after we die.

He concluded however, that what seemed the most appropriate, rational response to our own mortality should be a deep gratitude for the chance to be alive at all considering that most atoms in the Universe don’t get the chance to be alive or conscious. He summed up this particular lecture with an excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut’s book “Cat’s Cradle”. I thought I’d share it with you because it’s nicely articulated I think…

“God made mud. 

God got lonesome.   

So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”

“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars.”

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.

Lucky me, lucky mud.

I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.

Nice going, God.

Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn’t have.

I feel very unimportant compared to You.

The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.

I got so much, and most mud got so little.

Thank you for the honor!

Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.

What memories for mud to have!

What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!

I loved everything I saw!

 

In other news, the album will be coming out soon. We’ve still got a few things to organise first before locking in a launch date. Thanks for being patient with us.

Matt