What, Exactly, Is My Status?

What, Exactly, Is My Status?

How many aircraft pilots, upon deciding they will become pilots, wonder if they’ll ultimately die in a plane crash? I’m not talking about aircraft pilots who become pilots through military service. It’s reasonable to assume taking this route to piloting comes with greater odds one will die while piloting a military aircraft.

My guess would be that most pilots, outside of the military, become pilots with absolutely no thought they’ll die while flying. Far more people die in road crashes than in aircraft crashes, but I believe hardly anyone gets in their car always wondering if they’ll die taking the car out this time. A small number of people may, however.

What brought this question to mind for me, was reading about a plane crash. I wondered if, to the pilot, once he or she knew crashing was inevitable, the crash became confirmation of the imagined ending they’d been carrying in the back of their minds all that time - that they would probably die this way.

Then I realized I’m asking this question of myself; as though I am that pilot.

Have you ever had a close call with death? If you have, how did it make you feel? Each time you remember it; what is its message to you? Do you ever think about the outcomes possible if you had died in the incident instead? Are you absolutely, one hundred percent sure you didn’t die then?

Is it even possible for you to be sure you didn’t?

This is a recurring theme that pops into my mind at times. I’ve had more than one close call with death during my life, and sometimes I do wonder if I actually died but I’m not aware that I died, and I’m now existing in some afterlife scenario that just seems like “normal” living. After all, sometimes it can seem like Hell here on earth, as some human noted a very long time ago.

Maybe I died and ended up in this particular hell in which I find myself. It’s possible, but then there are good things that happen here in my present, observed existence, wherever that may be, and I don’t think the actual real Hell allows good things to happen to its inhabitants anyway.

I believe it’s the split-second timing of close calls with death, that periodically causes me to keep reconsidering whether or not I am dead or alive, as that split-second between life and death comes with odds. The odds I made it versus the odds I didn’t make it. Is it even possible for me to know definitively, which state I am in presently?

I don’t think it is really.

“Life is what you make it,” is an old saying that tells us we are responsible for the type and quality of life we live, good or bad, and how successful we’ll be. It can seem pretty illusionary and in fact, there are plenty of people who claim that life itself is an illusion.

Even science is coming to this conclusion now. In 2016, it was reported that “Researchers prove reality doesn’t exist.”

If reality doesn’t exist, there’s actually nothing we can imagine that is too crazy to think about or consider; right?

Of course, when they say reality doesn’t exist, they clarify by saying the non-existence occurs on a ”quantum level.” They also say their “confirmed” findings became a tool by which they successfully tested and “confirmed” physicist “John Wheeler’s delayed-choice theory.”

John Wheeler’s delayed-choice theory considers “a moving object that was given the choice to act like a wave or a particle… and at what point does it ‘decide’ to act like one or the other.”

This is pretty deep stuff. Based on the above experiment to test the theory, could the findings translate to and further illustrate that after experiencing a close call with death, a confused reaction over whether we are alive or not might not be that crazy after all?

I used to own a motorcycle that, at the time I purchased it new, was the fastest production motorcycle one could buy. It was nothing to zip down the highway at 120 mph. The bike was so powerful that if I held the throttle wide open in the highest gear, the front end would eventually rise up off the pavement.

Every time I rode it I had such fun, but later when I was at home and thinking about my earlier ride, there were many times I frightened myself recalling how I’d ridden the bike. I’d think about that fact that if I’d hit even a pebble lying on the road, it could kill me instantly if I’d hit it with my front tire at the speed I was travelling.

I just couldn’t stop myself from riding like a crazy idiot. I sold the bike because I knew it would eventually kill me if I kept it. I was proud I never actually had a close call with death on that bike, though I knew I would at some point, because I was unable to control myself due to the thrill of speed and power.

With the sale of the motorcycle, on which I’d do crazy, dangerous, life-threatening things uncontrollably, I assured myself that I would not be dying while riding it. But, was I just that good at riding that I was doing all those crazy things on that monster bike without concern, or was there another element involved?

After all, at that point in my life I’d already lived (?) through and “survived” two close calls with death.

I still can’t help but wonder; am I really that lucky?

_{What, Exactly, Is My Status? © free-reign 2020}

Source of information used and quoted in this post: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/738402/life-an-ILLUSION-reality-does-not-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it

Sources for images used in this post:

_{Beyond Death: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Sunset Monument: Image by Gerard Mak from Pixabay
Smiley: Image by Magic Creative from Pixabay
Math Formula: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Motorcycle:Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay}