Deep thought, introduced by a poem:

[triguy46]

No Deal

by Ronald Wallace

No Deal

And when I died, the devil came and said,
"Now here's the deal: I'll give you your old life
all over once again, no strings attached.
Like an actor in a play, of course, you'll have
to follow the same script that you rehearsed
the first time through—you cannot change a glance,
a word, a gesture; but think of taking your first
steps again, and having your first romance

repeat itself, your love back from the dead,
beautiful and new and seventeen.
What matter if you see the future coming—
The cloven hoof of sorrow, loss's horn—
her dreamy eye, her nodding head?"
Get thee behind me, Satan, I should have said.


OK, now the deep thought(s): We've all wondered such things as "If I only knew then..." or "I wonder what happened to her/him..." or more specifically, "What if I tried to find/locate/contact that old bf/gf/lover...."

I think the poem presents an irony of some significance: we want to go back on our terms, and our wishing for that is evidence. I want to go back to Fairway, KS, 1967, and be just as I was then. But wishing is just wishing...the actual doing may be more frightening. So here's a scary thought: What if you did reach out, search, hunt and finally find that special person and in doing so, at moment of recognition, realize that it is NOT 1967. He/she is not 15 years old, or slim, attractive, etc. Then what?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear triguy46...

Then, I wake up from that dream...

[triguy46]

2. Yes. And so we continue to wonder.

[RandomThoughts]

3. Interesting thought

I had a short story I wanted to make into something like an outerlimits episode that is sort of like that.

A guy dies and finds himself in a long white hallway, and at the end a door opens, and someone from his past is real excited and invites him in. She is modestly dressed and seems to have been doing some hard work, gloves and a bit of soil on her clothes, she tells the man how they are working to build a new town house to meet in, and how a bunch of people she list are there working on the project. She is all excited and waves him over.

But a side door opens, and a slick looking guy offers the guy a different thing, instead of going onward on the journey, he can go back and live the lives of anyone he wants. A big plasma screen shows lives of kings, wealthy and famous people. The slick looking guy tells him instead of working with the people to just build a house, he can have any mansion ever built!

So the guy agrees and goes back and lives the life of a brutal warlord king, treating everyone like slaves and lessors.

He returns after that life, and notices the door where his friends are does not open, so he picks another life, a famous Baron with many wives.

This pattern happens many times, and each time he lives in the luxury of a different life, but something nags at him, the sadness in the eyes of the people he mistreats, he thinks it is just his conscious and ignores it. But it bothers him, the looks from those he sees suffering under his poverty seem to be begging him to stop with what he is doing. On one of his trips back he even asks the slick guy what it is, but just gets a laugh in return and a pick of another life.


After a few thousand trips, the guy, never really bored, for each life is its own entirety, the guy wants to be the warlord he was on the first trip. The slick guy explains he can't be someone twice but says he can be the guys first slave. Horrified the guy asked why he would want to be that guy, that slave was beaten and lived a terrible life.

The slick guy just says, "well the order you live them in is your choice"

The guy realizes what he means, "the order you mean I will have to..."

the slick guy response "yep you have to live through every life, the guy you killed in that war, the one you let starve, the one you beat down, all of them."

After a few thousand times through living the terrible lives he created with his lack of compassion, he begs to be let to be with his old friends.

It is explained that this is the world he created, so it is the one he will live in, if he doesn't like it maybe he should change it.

Currently the man is living through billions more lives, trying to make a change with the only way his lack of knowledge, while existing in any individual life, can do, a desperate gaze, a simple look that is a request for compassion made to the horrible people, he now knows are actually himself.


Note this is just the basic idea, typed it up in a few seconds, so it would need to have better writing. It is also not my philosophy on life, but just a tale of how I think society should somehow think on a shared sense of compassion.

[triguy46]

4. You have something there. I wish you luck with your writing.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. nice.

like.

[RandomThoughts]

14. The epilogue that Outerlimits always has would go something like this.

When you look on that guy, you might think he was such bad people he deserves it, the simple thought of judgement we all seem to do. But if you accept the premise of the episode that lets you make that judgement, then you have to accept...

that person is also you.

[Rowdyboy]

5. I had a crush on a senior when I was a freshman in college in 1973...

When I saw a picture of him recently, I realized how lucky I was that he had "gotten away".

[triguy46]

8. that is the reality that we want so badly to ignore. good for you.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

7. I don't think I can pick up where we left off...

Maybe we could.

I would however trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday. If I can pick the day.

[triguy46]

9. woh. must have been a helluva day.

[Moondog]

10. How sad.

I've been there too ....

[raccoon]

11. Have you seen the miniseries/read the book LITTLE DORRIT?

In Little Dorrit Arthur Clennam becomes reacquainted with Flora Finching. She was the love of his youth. However time had not been kind to Flora:

“Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal blow.”

http://www.perryweb.com/Dickens/work_dorrit.shtml

[triguy46]

13. Which in many ways reflects what Dickens himself encountered in his own life.

[raccoon]

12. Would I go back to 1967 (or some other year when I was young) again?

NO EFFING WAY!

NFW NFW NFW