Here are my answers for Melanie’s weekly Share Your World challenge.

Questions:

Are we “here” or do we just think we are?  (A metaphysical question today folks.) Can you prove your point of view?
I think we are here and our existence on this tiny blue dot of a planet in the solar system is real. However, there may be alternate versions of us in alternate universes. This is a question explored in quantum physics: of all possible outcomes of any action, does the only one that exists the one we’ve chosen in our current existence’s real time? Perhaps in alternate versions of ourselves, other choices are made and our lives are very different.

I exist and see the world from my own point of view. I interact with others personally, on line, or otherwise, and every individual I come into contact has an impact on my life, however profound or slight.

As for existence after death (this wasn’t part of the question but it represents the future of whether we are “here”), I don’t believe in heaven or hell but neither do I believe in nothing. We are composed of energy which came from the stars created during the Big Bang. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. So what happens to the energy within our bodies when we die? It must go somewhere. That is my semi-scientific/semi-religious justification for believing in another existence after our current existence dies. Maybe my energy goes into the formation of a new person on Earth. Or maybe it will travel far and find itself in another being on another planet. Who knows? Many people believe in reincarnation – how that happens may be part of their religious belief. I believe in reincarnation also because I can’t believe in nothingness.

From an identity stand-point, which would be the worst for you personally to lose?  Your face, your body or your voice?    Which do YOU identify with most strongly for your own sense of self?
How do you come up with these questions?? Usually your questions are a lot less profound! I would not want to lose any of those things. If I “lose” my body, then who I am will cease to exist. However, if I lose the ability to USE my body (such as if I become totally paralyzed), I think it would be terrible as long as my brain were still working. Maybe I could learn to use one of those artificial voice translation machines if I couldn’t move, so that I could still communicate. Lose my face – what, from having it destroyed by burning or something? God awful! Burning would be the very worst way to die, in my view. Anyway, without my face, I wouldn’t have eyes, ears, nose or mouth. Maybe it would be better to have all those things but have my body be paralyzed. Because what would I be without any of my senses? When I think of not having a face, I think of ancient sculptures of people whose faces were destroyed by the ravages of time.

We see their body but not their face so we never know what they might have looked like. As for my voice, there are a couple of ways of thinking about this: my physical voice, that is, what one hears when I speak or sing; or my voice in the metaphorical sense – having a voice in decisions made, having a voice in who is elected president. We say we have a “voice” when we vote. If I were to lose that kind of voice, it would mean we would be in some sort of dictatorship or autocracy – which could happen if Trump is reelected….but I don’t want to think about that right now! However, if it were just my physical voice, I think I could do without it, because I could still write in order to communicate. However, it would be difficult, because I like to talk and I talk a lot!!

Do you have a ‘song’?  If you’re part of a couple, you could use “your couple’s song” OR a song that’s just always resonated with you.
There are too many songs to think about. So I will just say Unchained Melody, because when I first met my husband, that was the one song he would always want to dance to. So it kind of became “our song.”
Unchained Melody

“Spooky” Halloween Question:  Oooo!  BOO!  

Are ghosts real or has someone been smoking something and just imagines them?
I honestly don’t know. The logical, skeptical part of me says that ghosts or spirits do not exist. However, there is a part of me that believes in them. Maybe that is where our energy goes when we die – into a spirit or “ghost” if you want to call it that. Sometimes when I heard unexplained sounds in the house (my old house had these – where I live now is too small and too new for that), I said there was a ghost in the house. I told my son this when he was young and I got him to really believe it, but I assured him that the ghost was harmless and would never reveal itself to us. Just leave it alone and it will leave us alone. “Our” ghost became a sort of comforting presence!

---

GRATITUDE SECTION (as always strictly optional)

Please free free to share a moment of gratitude you experienced over the past week.
Hearing my son’s voice on the phone now that he is clean and sober. He’s actually pleasant to talk to when he isn’t depressed or self-medicated and has had something nutritious to eat.

Also I am grateful that the weather has been a little warm again even though it’s been really windy. Today was the last day of that warmth though – tomorrow it is supposed to be 20 degrees cooler and will not get warm again, probably until April!!