I don't know how many times I had heard or at least observed some form of the idea. That classic overused cliché:
that one's whole life flashes before their eyes in the conscious moments right before dying. I had heard it a lot –
I know that. I had even heard it used in plenty of non death related
instances, when people just wanted to add a little grandiose to a situation or story. I
myself had probably even used it in a story or two. It is, of course, one of those things that doesn't really make much sense
while you're alive, though. After all, how could one's entire life flash before their eyes?
Presumably, the use of the word "eyes" here is meant to represent sort of the "visualization"
center of the mind, as opposed to literally the eyeballs in the head.
But even still, how could the mind speed up years worth of experiences so fast that it could all be perceived and
recollected in minutes, or even seconds, and still be discernible?
I had always wondered at the absurdity of the notion whenever it was mentioned or
represented in something. Now, in this moment, on the side of the road, contorted and lacerated,
I was about to find out exactly what it meant.
I didn't know exactly how much blood the human body could lose before dying,
but it didn't take long for me to realize that I was getting pretty close.
I could feel my body shutting down and started experiencing weird pains that didn't hurt so much as confused and nauseated me.
Harder to describe than it was to feel. I could also hear that people were saying things to me that were indicative of someone dying:
things like, "Please don't close your eyes. Just hold on a little bit longer.
It's going to be okay. An ambulance is on the way." Stuff like that,
but with different words and in a much more pleading, dramatic tone.
They all knew as well as I did, though, what was happening, and that no amount of force of will to keep my eyes open
was going to outmatch death if it were to come. At this point
It felt much better to just close my eyes
anyway. It somehow relieved the pain a little. I accepted that I was dying by this point wasn't even really a conscious choice
My body knew my mind knew after this moment of acceptance
my mind certainly did race at a sort of flash like speed but mostly it felt comparable to that of what I would imagine a
Lucid panic attack feels like on 20 cups of coffee
I didn't see everything from my life and there was no apparent rhyme or reason or order of which I did I did however feel
a great sense of regret
as I
ruminated across all the feelings and thoughts and memories that appeared I
I thought about who I would never see again and what I would never do again
I thought about how I wouldn't see what colors were going to be in the next evening sunset
How I would never brush my teeth again
How I would never feel the air running over my skin or flowing into my nose again
I thought about the low hum of all the appliances in my house that I would never hear again
Then I thought about what I never saw or did but always wanted to all the times
I never told people how I felt or how much I cared about them all the opportunities
I let go because I was scared all the habits and problems in my life that I always wanted to change but never did
Then I thought about how much time I wasted worrying about these things the time I wasted hating myself the time I wasted being
Unhappy in the time I wasted getting mad at myself for being unhappy when I should have been happy
I thought about how I rarely ever fully synced up with what I knew I should have done or how I should have thought
How I seem to always deceive or sabotage myself in the process
I would get close to the sort of ideal or sublime that I always knew existed in each moment
But then I would run the other way. However, upsetting and sad this whole part was, it kind of fit my Hollywood
expectations of dying which only added to the disappointment
It was anticlimactic like predicting the end of a movie
Now I found myself getting upset and angry about the disappointingly rational and predictable process of getting upset
angry and regretful while dying even here
I was literally regretting my final moments of life as they occurred "how foolish could I be?"
I wondered what kind of being hates itself or brings suffering onto itself knowing that hating itself and suffering makes them miserable
What kind of being spends their final moments alive being miserable about their life? In this ridiculous self-loathing
Rumination as if coerced by something that was predetermined to happen at a certain moment of the body and brain turning off a sudden pause
Occurred a pause that felt much more like a flash than the previous flash that was occurring
It was not a flash of speed but a sudden flash of ceasing speed like a camera flash to a little rodent
it stunned me and stopped everything as
If my consciousness had finally surrendered told by my subconscious that there was no self or life left to defend for the first time
I felt free not free in the sense that I was able to do
Whatever. I wanted quite the opposite free in the sense that in only a few moments
I literally would not be able to do anything I wanted. In this I suddenly became so majorly indifferent to everything that everything became clear
I saw myself through an entirely different lens as if a smudge on my pre-existing lens had been cleared off
Revealing what had always been obstructed from me
I continued thinking for a little while but my thinking was different there wasn't critical
Rational or judgmental for the first time in my entire life. I saw who I really was
While alive I understood that I had a conscious brain and unconscious brain
I had learned about these fairly rudimentary psychology concepts as a young child and considered the implications of them frequently throughout my life
However, these terms never really translated in any practical or helpful way at least not for me
If anything they only made me feel like I had two parts of my brain the part that was me and the part
That wasn't. I was of course my conscious brain and my unconscious brain was something else that I was constantly fighting or trying to conquer
This wasn't wrong per say, but it wasn't exactly right either at a minimum, It certainly wasn't helpful
It took being mangled on the side of a road with parts of my brain seemingly being turned off to actually understand it. Sure
I was never my unconscious brain
But I was never my conscious brain either just like I was never my heart or my hand or anything else on its own
I was never even solely what was contained inside my body. I was everything in and out
I was the puppet and the puppeteer the puppeteer being sort of my unconscious brain
But also way more than my unconscious brain it was what made and fueled my unconscious brain
What made my brain as a whole. What made everything.
Admittedly while alive this might have sounded confusing or pretentiously cheesy or like spiritual nonsense or even cliche if someone had told me
Perhaps it is to you right now
Most things about life while I was alive though sounded confusing pretentiously cheesy or like spiritual nonsense
However, after a certain point of being viscerally aware of your approaching mortality
You sort of don't think about things like that anymore
You stopped putting this filter of judgment on top of sincerity or cliche archetypal experiences regardless
Even if you're not in this state if you can humor me just for a moment, imagine the puppet and puppeteer. I referred to
Consider how a puppeteer is only a puppeteer if it has and manipulates a puppet
If there was no such thing as a puppet, there would be no such thing as a puppeteer and vice versa
The puppet is not the puppeteer and the puppeteer is not the puppet
But without the other both ceased to exist in the context of their definitions
I spent my whole life thinking I was the puppet contained by the strings the consciousness contained by the brain the brain
Contained by the body the body contained by the world and as a result
I spent my whole life at war against everything
I felt contained by I spent my life pulling at the strings
Trying to rip myself from them these strings and my pulling at them
however
Was the source of all the self sabotage and self-loathing all the divisions and limits between what I wanted for myself and what I never
Could have I was contained by strings and furthermore
I added constant tension to them by pulling at them making things worse by always trying to make things better.
A little earlier I would have been gravely regretful of this realization far more than my earlier regrets
I would have tormented over the idea that I ruined my life missing the entire point making things worse than they had to be
however
I did not get mad or regretful at all by this point my conscious sense of self had fully given up on defending itself
I didn't care. I recognized that I had no choice in these strings existing in the first place. They were written in my DNA
They were written in the DNA of my DNA and furthermore
I had no choice in pulling at them either if I was both the puppet and the puppeteer
Even the act of pulling on these strings and struggling towards something was in fact part of the whole show
My being came with strings and my being came with the desire to pull at the strings
So what was I to do other than to live with strings and pull at them?
I spent my whole life fighting Who I was often hating who I was trying to be happier or better or something
Sometimes I would be successful but even then would mostly just return to the same starting point beginning the fight all over again
But of course this was because I never was who I thought I was
This part of myself that I always thought I was in a fight with turns out
It was actually more of a dance and without the constant push and pull without the struggle
Without seemingly having missed the point there would have been no point at all. No dance. No show.
The things I could have changed
I did the things I couldn't I didn't and the things I didn't know I should have I never thought to try. I was exactly
Who I could have been exactly who I needed to be. I did everything right by doing a great deal of things wrong
There was nothing to regret regret implies that I chose how things went, but I never really had a choice at all
I didn't choose who I was anymore or any less than anything else that is was or ever will be no more than a dog
Chooses to be a dog or rock chooses to be a rock
I just woke up and was I didn't choose who my parents were
Who my brain was like when my body was like well
my first sight was my first conscious experience my anxieties my fears or any of what these things caused me to do. Now, I was
about to fall asleep forever in the last choice
I never made
Holding the thing that I had been chasing my whole life what had been the source of my misery was now in the final moment
The source of my bliss the source of my self-discovery my acceptance of who I really was while alive and Who I am now
while dead