{"id":10697,"date":"2020-05-21T08:07:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T13:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=10697"},"modified":"2020-05-21T09:46:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T14:46:55","slug":"on-being-a-mortal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/05\/21\/on-being-a-mortal\/","title":{"rendered":"On being a mortal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some people believe you’re born from nothing; you live, which is something; and then you’re gone again, back to nothing. (Here’s a poignantly compressed version<\/a> of that, a life in under 6 minutes.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others believe you’re part of a much larger thing, which keeps recycling itself (including you). Maybe there’s progress or development over the long arc of it, from something primordial and undifferentiated to something perhaps unimaginable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still others believe you came here from somewhere else, and that this place is a kind of trial, a testing or proving ground, which you’ll eventually leave to go back to that someplace else. (There’s some debate over whether you get to bring anything back with you.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, there are those who believe you’re not ever alone. There are always others with you: those who came before, those who will follow, and those alongside you over the course of it. And all that you do, you do with and for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There. Did I miss anyone? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people believe you’re born from nothing; you live, which is something; and then you’re gone again, back to nothing. (Here’s a poignantly compressed version of that, a life in under 6 minutes.) Others believe you’re part of a much larger thing, which keeps recycling itself (including you). Maybe there’s progress or development over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691847],"tags":[628406,4417,218,25051,628407,201,628405,4451,628401,628404,417,320,628402],"class_list":["post-10697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-spirituality","tag-beliefs","tag-buddhism","tag-christianity","tag-cosmology","tag-humanism","tag-immanence","tag-indigenous-philosophy","tag-mortality","tag-perspectives-on-life","tag-reincarnation","tag-religion","tag-transcendence","tag-world-philosophy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2Mx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2668,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/27\/sspeculative-rrealism-philosophy-as-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":10697,"position":0},"title":"s(S)peculative r(R)ealism & philosophy-as-life","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It's nice to see Speculative Realism capturing the attention of SF writer and all-round idea impresario Bruce Sterling - see his Speculative Realism as \"philosophy fiction.\" As a long-time SF lover, the idea of \"philosophy fiction\" has always appealed to me. Some of the best writing in the genre has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1147,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/11\/02\/on-politics-ontology\/","url_meta":{"origin":10697,"position":1},"title":"on politics & ontology","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(For some reason, this didn't go out over Google Reader, so I'm re-posting it...) The Speculative Realist blogosphere has been abuzz over the relationship between ontology and politics. Nick Srnicek's post at Speculative Heresy - and the many comments on it - provide a good entry point to this discussion.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/29\/buddhist-objects-processes\/","url_meta":{"origin":10697,"position":2},"title":"Buddhist objects & processes","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Does object-oriented ontology = Buddhism? Tim Morton has been making intriguing sounds to that effect, and Levi Bryant has begun to ask him the hard questions about how and whether that might be possible -- of how to \"square the circle\" of independent substances (OOO) with Buddhism's conditioned genesis (a.k.a.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"LotusSutraPage~R50~SarahFraserCourse.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/09\/LotusSutraPageR50SarahFraserCourse.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1237,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/04\/09\/subjects-objects-together-or-apart\/","url_meta":{"origin":10697,"position":3},"title":"subjects & objects, together or apart…","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Levi Bryant's detailed and generous replies to my critical queries, both in the comments section of this post and at Larval Subjects, and Graham Harman's replies here (and in an e-mail exchange) have helped me get a much clearer sense of where the main differences lie between their respective \"object-oriented\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6959,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/10\/21\/whats-real\/","url_meta":{"origin":10697,"position":4},"title":"What’s real","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Conversation overheard between an ambitious grad student and a simpleminded process-relational philosopher . . . \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jake Wanano-Everton:\u00a0\u00a0 Sir, where do you draw the line between what's real and what's not real? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prof. Noah Fewthings: \u00a0 The only things that are real are the moments of experienced reality\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/water-droplet.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1187,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/01\/29\/the-politics-of-objects-relations\/","url_meta":{"origin":10697,"position":5},"title":"the politics of objects & relations","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The objects versus relations debate has revved up again over at Larval Subjects, in the commentary responding to Levi Bryant\u2019s Questions about the possibility of non-correlationist ethics. The debate, as I would describe it, circles around the following question: If we agree that traditional philosophy has been too centrally premised\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10697"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10704,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}