Left to my own devices

Reading Matt Zoller Seitz's remembrance of his wife , Jennifer, on the tenth anniversary of her death, filled me with a sense of dread, sadness and anxiety. Despite having read Matt's reviews on RogerEbert.com for years and being aware of the books he's written about director Wes Anderson, this was an aspect of his life of which I was unaware. I felt sadness for his loss, even though it is now a decade old. The dread and anxiety crept-in because such a read will invariably make one reflect on their own life situation and think, 'Oh no, what if it happens to me?!' Ashley & I will have been together sixteen years this June. First and foremost: if anything ever happened to him, I would be devastated. Of that, there is no doubt. It's not something I dwell on, though I do think about it perhaps more than I should. Every time he drives to work, or even goes off to the store on his own, I hope he comes back. I've known people whose spouses have died in...

David Allred has written a " faith column " for Oak Ridge Today , in which he takes umbrage with the late Roger Ebert's musings on death . In particular, Allred would seem to dislike the term "nothing" being ascribed to the state of what happens to us after we die. Allred appears to believe in an afterlife and, it seems, a god. Following is a passage from Ebert's essay-in-question: I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. Adding to Allred's distress over Ebert's beliefs (or lack thereof) is the mass sharing of the late film critic's essay that has occurred since his passing earlier this month. From Allred: ...

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am not a believer in the afterlife. It is a fairly certain disbelief, but not one carved in stone, as none of us really have proof one way or the other, so I admit to possibly being very wrong on the subject. At any rate, one of the reasons I've had an issue with the notion of an afterlife (at least, as it's been presented in most world religions) is that it seems to encompass all of eternity. That may seem lovely to some, but not to this fellow. As the First Doctor noted in the 1983 Five Doctors special, "Immortality is a curse, not a blessing." I mean, really, who wants to live forever?