Words by Andy Watkins:
My grandad and I had many conversations about life and what it meant, he was a
philosophical man much like my father so I suppose you could say it runs in my family. We
shared a view of reality, and that is that all people are innately interconnected with the
universe, that is why science has no explanation of consciousness, because
consciousness is the energy that connects all things.
In this sense there isn’t anything radically wrong with dying, who said you’re supposed to
survive?
Who gave us the idea that we must go on and on and on? We can’t argue it’s a good thing
to live eternally by the simple demonstration that we would overcrowd this planet we call
home.
So therefore one person who dies is in such a way honourable, because they are making
room for others, this is but an example of life’s state of perfect balance, the yin and the
yang.
We can look deeper into this and see that if we could postpone our death indefinitely, we
would not choose to actually go on postponing it forever, because at a certain point we
would realise this is not the way we wanted to survive, why else would we have children?
Because children arrange for us to survive in another way, by as it were, passing on a
torch, so you don’t have to carry the weight of it all the time. There comes a point where
you can give it up and say its your turn now, and you see, this is a far more fascinating
arrangement for nature to continue the process of living through a perpetual cycle of new
individuals, rather than always with the same ones, the reason why is because as each
new individual experiences life it is renewed, a child’s fascination with the beauty of this
world is only achieved through this process of life and death.
When we think of life only in terms of survival we take away all of the magic within it, it is
not natural for us to wish to prolong our lives indefinitely, and yet our culture ingrains this
mindset in us.
From birth we are taught to view life as a journey, to always get from A to B, with the goal
of success. Each step of the way through school, college, university and into the world of
work we constantly set our sights into the future, to the next milestone, but even those who attain this so called success are not content, because they missed the point the whole way along.
Life is not a journey, a far better analogy would be that of music, it has no destination, the
point is not to reach the end but to simply dance while the melody plays, we must
recognise that all we ever have is this moment, because otherwise we spend our whole
lives searching for happiness in tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.
So at times like this it should serve an abrupt reminder of the beautiful fragility of our time
on this planet, we should marvel at the magnificence of nature, we should feel gratitude for
the miracle that is life, and like a child we should be in awe at the simplest of things.
These are but some of the quite profound concepts me and my grandad discussed, he
certainly was an intelligent man that’s for sure, I will never forget those moments with him.
He was also a hell of a chess player, I did have a few games with him and managed to
beat him just once, and our last game was a very tightly fought draw, which to me seems
fitting.
My grandad was a kind man, he would always sort me out the best smoke available
when I would go to see him, perhaps that’s why our discussions would always be incredibly
deep because one or both of us was always high as fuck. I remember going to play poker
with him, his friends and my dad, although that I never did win at, these guys were too
good for me but it was always an ace time.
My grandad went out of his way for me, to help me live joyfully, not many people get to
have the sort of relationship with their grandparent that I have had, I will always treasure
that.
Grandad, I am thankful and lucky to be your grandson, you will be sorely missed my old
friend.
Words by Andy Watkins:
My grandad and I had many conversations about life and what it meant, he was a
philosophical man much like my father so I suppose you could say it runs in my family. We
shared a view of reality, and that is that all people are innately interconnected with the
universe, that is why science has no explanation of consciousness, because
consciousness is the energy that connects all things.
In this sense there isn’t anything radically wrong with dying, who said you’re supposed to
survive?
Who gave us the idea that we must go on and on and on? We can’t argue it’s a good thing
to live eternally by the simple demonstration that we would overcrowd this planet we call
home.
So therefore one person who dies is in such a way honourable, because they are making
room for others, this is but an example of life’s state of perfect balance, the yin and the
yang.
We can look deeper into this and see that if we could postpone our death indefinitely, we
would not choose to actually go on postponing it forever, because at a certain point we
would realise this is not the way we wanted to survive, why else would we have children?
Because children arrange for us to survive in another way, by as it were, passing on a
torch, so you don’t have to carry the weight of it all the time. There comes a point where
you can give it up and say its your turn now, and you see, this is a far more fascinating
arrangement for nature to continue the process of living through a perpetual cycle of new
individuals, rather than always with the same ones, the reason why is because as each
new individual experiences life it is renewed, a child’s fascination with the beauty of this
world is only achieved through this process of life and death.
When we think of life only in terms of survival we take away all of the magic within it, it is
not natural for us to wish to prolong our lives indefinitely, and yet our culture ingrains this
mindset in us.
From birth we are taught to view life as a journey, to always get from A to B, with the goal
of success. Each step of the way through school, college, university and into the world of
work we constantly set our sights into the future, to the next milestone, but even those who attain this so called success are not content, because they missed the point the whole way along.
Life is not a journey, a far better analogy would be that of music, it has no destination, the
point is not to reach the end but to simply dance while the melody plays, we must
recognise that all we ever have is this moment, because otherwise we spend our whole
lives searching for happiness in tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes.
So at times like this it should serve an abrupt reminder of the beautiful fragility of our time
on this planet, we should marvel at the magnificence of nature, we should feel gratitude for
the miracle that is life, and like a child we should be in awe at the simplest of things.
These are but some of the quite profound concepts me and my grandad discussed, he
certainly was an intelligent man that’s for sure, I will never forget those moments with him.
He was also a hell of a chess player, I did have a few games with him and managed to
beat him just once, and our last game was a very tightly fought draw, which to me seems
fitting.
My grandad was a kind man, he would always sort me out the best smoke available
when I would go to see him, perhaps that’s why our discussions would always be incredibly
deep because one or both of us was always high as fuck. I remember going to play poker
with him, his friends and my dad, although that I never did win at, these guys were too
good for me but it was always an ace time.
My grandad went out of his way for me, to help me live joyfully, not many people get to
have the sort of relationship with their grandparent that I have had, I will always treasure
that.
Grandad, I am thankful and lucky to be your grandson, you will be sorely missed my old
friend.
