Now That’s What I Call A Second Act!

And now…your fun and cheeky conclusion to Zen Death Meditation!

Last time we talked, I was sharing with you the joys of contemplating my own death in light of what I was convinced would be an impending positive COVID test. If you haven’t already read And Now…Your Moment Of Zen Death Meditation, take a quick break and catch up–if nothing else, I won’t have to re-explain what the heck Maranasati is. But, given that your time is indubitably precious, I offer to you a brief summary.

In reverse chronological order, here are the two main conclusions I came to during that fateful COVID-induced Maranasati session:

Death may not be the end of my time on Earth…

and:

I am most definitely not ready to die…

Scratch that last thought–what I really should say is that I’m not ready to stop taking care of my family.¹This makes more sense if you have read the Death Zen Mediation post already. But I’ll stop beating a dead horse now, I suppose… Death be damned.

In fact, I started to be downright belligerent about the matter: if I die, I’m going to simply refuse to “move on to the light” or whatever other long-term options supposedly await all the Bougie dead folk. All y’all can enjoy your shuffleboard in the sky or what-have-you; I got business left to tend to here in this realm, and I plan on keeping one foot firmly planted in this world.

First things first: I got some, um, “marital” duties that need to be fulfilled.

With all due respect to my overly-competent wife, she would be lost trying to handle the family finances in my absence (she may bring home the bacon, but I’m the only one who knows how to fry it up just right). I’m not kidding one bit: this is the very first thing I started fretting about when imagining my death.

Well, guess what? According to all those ghost-hunting shows your grandma watches, I should be able to manipulate most electronic devices. And guess what is done almost purely via electronics? Our finances.

Okay…so things are starting to look up. I may not necessarily have to leave my loved ones completely high and dry upon my departure.

Now, what else could I conceivably do on the Other Side?

You know…my employer wouldn’t really need to know that I’m legally deceased, would they? I’ve been working remotely for the last 8 months, and I’m honestly not seeing any hard and fast reason I couldn’t keep fulfilling my job duties from the grave. Just keep depositing those paychecks, baby, and I’ll keep on delivering those deliverables!²Web-based passive-income businesses (such as The Prissy Pet Project are another great candidate for providing longer-term financial security.

At that point in my thought adventure I realized, “Holy sh*t, for real what all could I do were I to take up a ghosting gig?” The fact that this whole crazy concept may not be entirely impossible was really getting me pumped about the prospect of dying. Oh, the places I could go!

Of course, “the places I could go” might be limited by whatever The Rules are–and I have no ----- clue what those are–so I technically have to include the disclaimer that the following claims have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration, and should in no way be construed as a guarantee of what one might be able to do with their Afterlife. I’m just letting my imagination run wild here, folks.

Now without further ado, here is a sampling of things I might attempt to do if/when I arrive in the In-Between:³Alas, though, since I’m stuck with a Second Place Survivor’s medal–aka a negative COVID test result–and I don’t know if I’ll get to actually try out any of these theories any time soon, for now all these ideas will have to suffice as fodder for short stories, mini novellas, TV show premises, and/or movie scripts.

• Do you know what an “incubus” is? I’ve heard the term, but am curious to find out what all the hub-bub is about.
• I figure being a “guardian angel” to my daughters would keep me plenty busy. Especially when they’re of dating age. Guess who has 4 thumbs and getting chaperoned on every date until they’re engaged?!? Also, guess who has 4 thumbs and will never have to worry about being sexually assaulted?!? That’s right, these gals.⁴Images and names have been redacted to protect the privacy of minors, but you may know them as The Elder and The Younger. Why? Because their Ghost Dad will strangle anyone who has not obtained proper consent with their own limp ----- . Consider yourself duly warned.
• I also plan on doing all the other “normal” dad things I already do. Critical to this plan is finding a way to have long-ass conversations, though. Using a Ouija board to communicate with the girls would never get the job done on account of how ----- tedious my verbosity would be one letter at a time.
• Oh, you thought this blog was going to die with me, eh? That’s cute. You can rest assured that resting in peace won’t stop me from sharing all my wonderful philosophical thoughts on life (and death).
• Well, if ghosts have unfettered internet access… I figure I would take advantage of having plenty of time⁵Interestingly, there is reason to believe that the dead have shit to do, including a very active social calendar. See: “Champ” from Spooked Podcast (https://bit.ly/3bfT6PJ — Luminary subscription required). to take online courses. I’ve been thinking about picking up a few more programming languages and perhaps an MBA from Strayer University…
• Hacking could also be another delightful new hobby. It should be a snap to steal people’s passwords just by peeking over their shoulders! No doubt I would use this to clandestinely advance my radical political causes.
• Speaking of politics, could I be a political assassin? At first I thought about being your run-of-the-mill assassin whose end game is the death of the target. But then I realized it would be much more entertaining to ----- with the targets instead. For example, I’m thinking of lightly choking them while they are publicly speaking so that their health and/or mental well-being is called into question. I’ll also have to look into whether straight-up possession might be an option. In that case, my first order of business would be to troll prominent Republicans by making them randomly blurt out “Black Lives Matter!” on the record. Oh, the horror!

Of all the fantastic ideas I’ve had, I think my favorite scheme is “Scientist On The Other Side.” This is exactly as it sounds like. I would be making observations like crazy, coupled with designing basic, yet informative experiments.

Is gravity the same there as it is here? Is gravity even a thing?

I’ve heard that ghosts often complain of being cold. What’s up with that? Where does that fit into the basic laws of thermodynamics?

What are the limitations of the forces that we dead folk can instigate in the land of the living? And where does that energy come from? Also: how does living human fear seem to translate into energy in the non-living domain?

What is it about salt that distorts the fabric of the Other Dimensions? I suspect that its basic crystalline structure and associated eigenfrequencies come into play some how…but how?

As you can see, I’m a physicist, and I have a few questions…

My fantasy here, though, hinges on having a living accomplice to whom I can channel all my findings. Now, I’ve already started recruiting for this, if you were curious, but I’m interested if you’re interested, ya know?

Okay, so to be clearer about what I want to do here: I want to establish an entirely new branch of science, one that takes the metaphysical and makes it physical, and takes the paranormal and makes it normal.

Honestly, I’m a scientist to my core, and frankly, I’m not buying this “the Devil’s running around doing all this crazy shit to test your faith” hand-waving voo-doo bullshit. There’s got to be rules, and I wager that they can be reconciled with our current understanding of science. Or, better yet, blow the modern paradigms away the same way Relativity and Quantum Mechanics did. I suppose in that case, they would have no choice to break the rules and award me the Nobel Prize posthumously…

I chuckle heartily at the idea of struggling to be a mediocre scientist in life, only to turn out to be a trailblazing, Earth-shattering scientist in death. Now that’s what I call a Second Act, my friends!

And consider this outside-the-pine-death-box thought, will ya: what a plot twist would that be if I’ve anxiously worried my days away, wondering if I will ever really do anything meaningful with my life…but never realizing that it was what I would do with my death that would make me bigger than Einstein!⁶And finally bringing long-overdue glory and renown my sleepy l’il hometown of Rolla, Kansas!

Now you can see why that negative COVID test was so disappointing–I got me some BIG plans for my death/afterlife! But you know what? My overly-enthusiastic attitude is not deterred one bit.

Let’s see…how do I put this?

Content created on: 6/7 & 13 November 2020 (Fri/Sat/Fri)

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