Presence

The simplest question and the first question that a lot of us ask ourselves is, What happens when someone dies? I mean, scientifically, we know the answer is straight forward: once we die, we would just simply go back into the earth and decompose over time. Yet there is more to us than simply what we see and feel physically, right? There are memories, impacts, and emotions that we feel on a daily basis. Do they just decompose as hormones and chemicals in our brain while others forget to remember us? How would we know unless we actually went through the process by which we died? Sometimes I like to think that dying is just a prolonged sleep, an ultimate rest that we are able to reach once we have worked through life. So do we dream when we die? What happens to the fully functioning concept of reality and realisation inside us? It can’t just fade into a decomposing mass.

Everyone says that we live on in each other’s memories; memories can last for a lifetime, even more if passed on. While our physical body can be reduced to bones in less than a year. So, it would be impossible for us to simply be reduced to a decomposing body. Each human is worth more than that. That is what makes the species so developed and why we begin to consider ourselves better than other animals. It is the cognition ability that each of us holds. So we can potentially live forever, right? We would just have to remind everyone to remember us. How can we do that? Is it simply by being present in people’s view or even talking to them? Or is there more? Is it possible for one person’s memory to be of greater value than another's?

It would just be straightforward in the fact that the people who made someone feel good would be remembered better. The greater the impact, the greater the memory, right? I would think differently. I think memory is extremely short-term, so when we think of someone in the long term, instead of really remembering how something could feel, it would be more of what was done. I may remember getting my first pet, but I probably will forget the feeling of happiness I had in that moment. Because it would be nothing without the pet.

So that got me thinking—is all we are ever worth our presence? Even once we are not anymore, is that the only thing that matters? Looking at it this way, we would be most valuable simply for being there instead of making someone feel some way. As it never matters what we intend to do or end up doing, it matters how the ones around us end up remembering the feeling of our presence.