The Last Redline

Now I am waiting at the hospital instead, as the test came back that I should check into emergency straight away for some more tests.

it'll be fine.

I didn't really get to say goodbye to Smallsteps properly, just a quick hug and a "love you". Though not sure if it will ever be enough of a goodbye, if it were to be the last.

She was upset because we were just about to start playing a game together.

While if something were to happen I would have the fade to black end, what is hard prior is thinking about how she would be affected by it, and not being there to help her deal with it. Millions of kids have had a similar experience and survived, but that doesn't make it easier to accept.

The Last.

Last hug.
Last laugh.
Last kiss.
Last word.

Last memory.

What will Smallsteps' last memory of me be? I don't think it will be one of those profound, life affirming ones that will make everything better. Likely, it will be something mundane, useless. But she might still cherish it and add weight and importance to it that it doesn't deserve. Connect meaning to it, just because it was the last memory committed, not because it was the most valuable experienced.

Is there such a thing as the perfect ending?

Closure. Perhaps it would be better to be able to have complete closure, move on in life as of the past never existed, including the people of the past. No matter how important they were at some time, maybe it is better to fully let go and no longer have the memory influence the future.

We would lose something in this, but perhaps that loss will be more than offset by the gain of not having to suffer the negatives of dealing poorly with the loss of those we once loved. We could remove the cognitive and emotional load, freeing up space for better things.

The thought of being forgotten once gone makes me uncomfortable, but at that point, what will it matter to me? If it would be better for Smallsteps to forget me, that is the outcome I would want for her as a parent.

However, perhaps our memories and the poor way we handle things like grief, is part of our evolutionary process that ends up making us stronger as a species. We each get punished so that future people can be punished in new ways.

We are not sinners, we are victims of circumstance.

We have so little control over our environment and experiences, that blaming us for our poor outcomes is ridiculous. This doesn't mean we can't affect our outcomes, but it is very much hit and miss, and it is influenced by those random experiences of our past too, meaning that if we missed out on a particular lesson somewhere, we don't have the tools to deal with a particular problem sometime down the track.

Primed for failure.

But even as we fail, others can learn from our mistakes.... lucky them.

Perhaps failure is the guiding force of human evolution, where "Survival of the fittest" isnt about being strong, it is about being able to learn from the failures of others in order to survive. Obviously, if we don't learn, we are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past and if we do this for long enough, eventually we will fail straight into oblivion as a species.

Oblivion doesn't sound bad.

Do the dinosaurs miss existence?

Eventually, we are all going to be forgotten, no matter what we do or how much impact we have on the world, or those upon it. We could be the best of humanity or ots worst, and still, at some point, none of it will matter at all either way.

is that sad, or is it a blessing?

Maybe it is our ability to forget that gives us a chance to forgive, or a chance not to have to live with the pain of disliking people we never met and never did anything directly against us. Why would I despise the descendents of people long gone, who hurt my long gone ancestors? Where is the value in that? Why carry that resentment, empower that hate?

but we do.

"The people of country-X killed my great grandfather - they deserve to be punished."

Maybe the people who did the killing do deserve it... But they are long gone also. The debt shouldn't transfer to the children, let alone to those several generations down the path. But because people don't want to forget, the issues can persist for hundreds of years.

No one can move on.

I wonder what the world would become of we all had our memories scrubbed and we had to start from scretch, learning about ourselves and each other again, without the preconceived prejudices of collective learning passed down through the ages.

How long until we are back in the same place?

Blaming one group or the other for the conditions of our lives.

New memories. Same old patterns.

I wonder what negative predispositions Smallsteps holds because of her time with me. There are of course the genetic factors which will affect her health and the way she thinks, but what about what she has learned through nurture, from what I have said, what I have done, what I have exhibited knowingly or unwittingly?

A lot of people struggle based on their upbringing and face huge hurdles in trying to unlearn what they should never have on boarded in the first place. If we have evolved to survive, why aren't we built just to let go of the baggage that harms us, holds us back and hastings us from accomplishing a better life and achieving contentment?

I have many theories and many questions.