- I'm glad I lived, but I'm glad it's over. "I hope never to return." (Frida Kahlo) Once is enough.
- I wish I'd never been born. Once is too much.
There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: "O wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is -- to die soon."
- I love this life and wish it didn't have to end. Once is not enough.
My view is the first. Suppose a representative of Governance appears to you at life's end. He says he has the power to grant you another go-round on the wheel of becoming: if you accept his offer you will repeat your life with every detail the same. Every detail! Including the detail of accepting the offer of Noch Einmal! (Think about what that entails.) I would say, "Hell no!," not again, not even once let alone endlessly. Up or out! Either up to a better state, or annihilation.
This life is preliminary and probationary; surely no end in itself. And if not preliminary and probationary, then meaningless. In this life were are in statu viae.
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