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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Into Eden

Derek Apted was dying. Alone, in a hospital bed. In the final stages of a long degenerative illness. He was only 54.

During lucid moments he reviewed his life. So many regrets. So many lost opportunities. If only he knew then what he knew now. If only he could repeat his life with the benefit of hindsight.

Then an angel appeared to him in his hospital room. Or maybe it was just a hallucination. Hard to say in his often delirious state of mind.

The angel asked him if he wanted anything. Derek asked the angel for a chance to repeat his life, but with his memories intact.

In a flash, Derek found himself back in kindergarten. On the outside, a little boy. On the inside, a middle-aged man with a college degree and decades of experience.

He quickly established himself as a wunderkind. His teachers and parents were amazed at this precocious little boy. So mature for his years!

One of the first things Derek did was to talk his dad into making some prescient investments in some fledgling companies which would one day become Fortune 500 companies.

Derek wanted to be independently wealthy, not because he craved a rich man’s lifestyle, but because it would give him more control over his circumstances.

By the time he graduated from high school, and took ownership of his fortune, Derek was one of the world’s richest men. Yet only his tax attorneys and portfolio managers knew the extent of his fortune.

Outwardly, Derek maintained a fairly modest, middle class lifestyle. He never wanted much more than what he had. His problem lay in losing what he used to have. Derek had a happy boyhood and adolescence.  He wanted to maintain as much of his past intact as possible. That’s where the money went.

Sure, there were a few indulgences along the way. Like a nice sports car in high school.

His friends were dimly aware of the fact that even though he wore what they wore, ate what they ate, he seemed to have bottomless pockets. Although he never worked a job, he could always afford whatever he needed or wanted. Always picked up the tab at the restaurant, or movies, or whatever.

Derek knew that his intellectual reputation was a perishable commodity. A 5-year-old with an adult IQ is a genius. And adult with an adult IQ is merely average. As he got older he had to coast on his reputation. Bluff his way through conversations with fellow students who were truly gifted.

He was offered full scholarships to Harvard and MIT, but he turned them down. He didn’t need the Ivy League education. He didn’t need a college education. He already had one. And, in any case, he didn’t need a job to pay the bills. More to the point, he couldn’t sustain his intellectual reputation in that company.

Derek’s ambitions were very unambitious. Down to earth. Close to home. He wanted to preserve his past, and redeem some lost opportunities.

His home was a beach cabin on the lake. His parents bought the property for a modest sum, before the area became so gentrified. Later they were priced off the land by ever increasing property taxes.

Derek always resented that. He was hoping to inherit the property. To be cheated out of it by the taxman was galling.

And now, of course, that wasn’t a problem. In fact, he bought some other neighborhood homes. He lived in one while his parents lived in his old home.

He moved his grandmother and his elderly aunt into another home nearby. In her old age, his grandmother lived alone until a house-burglar broke into her home and attacked her. She never recovered from that incident.

But Derek, with an eye to the future, could now prevent that from happening. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons he was repeating his life. To protect his loved ones from harm.

He also knew that his aunt would come down with a degenerative illness. Indeed, it ran in the family. She spent her final years in a nursing home.

Derek regretted that. And now he could do better. When the disease began to take hold, he could keep her close by, in the house next door. Provide her with a live-in nurse. Whatever she needed.

And he took the opportunity to have all the conversations with his aunt and his grandmother that he thought about having after they died, when it was too late to ask.

As a boy, Derek had a dog. He loved his dog. Indeed, after the dog died, he never wanted another dog. He remembered the day he had to put her to sleep. And he never quite got over that. He still missed his own dog.

So this time around he was more attentive to her physical needs. Had her groomed regularly. Scheduled regular check-ups with the vet.

Derek was also sorry that he never tried out for the football team. He missed the camaraderie. The opportunity to befriend certain students. Maintain lifelong friendships.

And now he had a chance to make up for that. Even though he wasn’t very good at football, he made the team. The athletic dept. could always use more money for equipment. All it took was a private little chap with Coach O’Brien, and Derek had his jersey.

After they graduated from high school, Derek hired his friends to keep them close. Found jobs for them to keep them in the area. Rented out his houses to them for a nominal sum.

One of the best things about repeating the past was his opportunity to date a couple of girls he let slip away the last time around. At the time there were two girls in high school who caught his fancy. He wasn’t sure which one he preferred, for he never got around to dating either one. Now he could get to know them both, and decide which one to marry.

Life was better this time around. Much better. At least in some respects.

And yet he couldn’t shake a certain lingering sadness. It’s something of a curse to know the future unless you can also control the future, or change the future. A bit fatalistic, really.

He could use his wealth and foresight to extend the lives of his loved ones. Enhance their quality of life. But in the end, he couldn’t really save them. They’d still age, sicken, and die.

He could take a different route this time, but all routes had the same destination. You just got there sooner or later, that’s all.

Indeed, life was rather anticlimactic. He often knew just what to expect. Pleasures were less pleasant when you could see them coming a mile away.

And he was filled with foreboding. Instead of outliving loved ones once, he’d have to outlive them twice.

And then there was the nagging fear that his friends loved him for his money. The first time round, when all of them were hard up for money, and only had each other, wasn’t friendship more meaningful? What comes easily, goes easily.

Moreover, he could do nothing to prevent the onset of his own degenerative illness. Once again he felt the clockwork progression of the old familiar symptoms.

There was only so much this life had to offer. He needed something more. Something this autumnal world could never provide. 

12 comments:

  1. Interesting story although it seems to me that Derek's second time around would be wholly different from the first moment he moved right instead of left at kindergarten. The "butterfly effect", if you will.

    The reason why I like this story is because it impresses the importance of living life to the fullest the first time around. As a humanist, my belief is that death is the end of the road so I encourage everyone to live their lives to the fullest. Dance on the surf while you can. Stop and smell the flowers. Explore. Discover. Learn. Run that race. Climb that mountain. Give that speech. Play that game. Meet new people. Take that trip. Read/write that book. Love and be loved. This is the only life you get so make the most of it.

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  2. "As a humanist, my belief is that death is the end of the road so I encourage everyone to live their lives to the fullest."

    Translation:

    "As a humanist, my belief is that death is the end of the road so I encourage everyone to live their lives as if humanism was false."

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  3. THE ATHEIST MISSIONARY SAID:

    "Interesting story although it seems to me that Derek's second time around would be wholly different from the first moment he moved right instead of left at kindergarten. The 'butterfly effect', if you will."

    The "butterfly effect" doesn't mean everything is different. Rather, the consequences are unpredictable.

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  4. The Atheist Missionary said...

    "This is the only life you get so make the most of it."

    The fallacy of that advice is that it posits a perspective which is only available to the living, not the dead. You can only take satisfaction in living life to the fullest of you remember what you did. But what difference will it make to the decedent that he made the most of his opportunities?

    You're just another blind atheist. Blind to the consequences of your position.

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  5. Aside from the fact that TAM misstated the butterfly effect, he also overlooks the fact that my story is noncommittal on the metaphysics of time travel. In terms of "mechanics," my story is consistent with several different interpretations:

    i) A real angel granted Derek a real chance to redo his life.

    ii) Both the angel and time travel were merely figments of Derek's delirious imagination. He remained in the hospital bed the whole time.

    iii) A real angel granted Derek a stimulated chance to redo his life. (He remained in the hospital bed the whole time.) And his disillusionment would leave the door open to a deathbed conversion.

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  6. Steve if this is original work, it is really well done. I enjoyed the fruitful philosophical (and theological) questions it posed.

    Some questions:

    Assuming you're a Calvinist, how much of a determinist are you?.

    Given the same set of initial conditions, do you believe a person would live the exact same life over again, without change? How about the universe, would it unfold exactly the same if reset to the same initial conditions?

    (Yes - I know that in this story, the initial conditions have changed, that Derek retained his previous life's experience)

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  7. Calvinism doesn't reject counterfactuals. Rather, it's a question of what grounds counterfactuals. An alternate timeline is possible had God decreed an alternate timeline.

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  8. If you mouse over to the sidebar, under "FICTION BY STEVE HAYS," you'll find lots of other short-stories I've written (as well as a novel).

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  9. The Atheist Missionary said:

    The reason why I like this story is because it impresses the importance of living life to the fullest the first time around. As a humanist, my belief is that death is the end of the road so I encourage everyone to live their lives to the fullest. Dance on the surf while you can. Stop and smell the flowers. Explore. Discover. Learn. Run that race. Climb that mountain. Give that speech. Play that game. Meet new people. Take that trip. Read/write that book. Love and be loved. This is the only life you get so make the most of it.

    The reason why I like this story is because it impresses the importance of living life to the fullest. As a Christian, my belief is that the God of the Bible exists so I encourage everyone to live their lives with God at its center in order to live life to the fullest.

    I look to the starry skies which declare the glory of God and thank him for having created the universe. I look at the lilies of the field and see that even Solomon in all his splendor wasn't clothed like one of these, and how much more will my Heavenly Father clothe me.

    I explore the world around me as I travel to foreign lands whence I come across sheep from other folds who know and love God too - people from all walks of life, from every tribe, tongue, and nation - and immediately recognize the family resemblance, and so together with them sing in one voice such joyous songs to God as outsiders can't begin to imagine.

    In addition to the heavens above, I discover the microscopic realms beneath and within, and marvel at the complexities and intricacies with which God has created it all. I look at the human body and praise God for having fearfully and wonderfully made each of us.

    I learn calligraphy and the violin, I appreciate literature and philosophy, I read history and study foreign languages, I enjoy mathematics and all manners of science, and best of all I spend time in God's presence listening to him unfold the wonders of his word to me, and praise him for not only teaching me but making me teachable in the first place.

    When I run that race I feel God's pleasure. When I climb that mountain I call to mind my pilgrim journey scaling the heights toward Mt. Zion. Nearer to thee, my God, each day brings me nearer to thee! When I preach that sermon, introduce myself to new people, and attempt to echo his words in my feeble words, I pray God would manifest his love and truth through his word and add to his people many more.

    Although I often fail, and deeply, I keep trying to love God, and love others as myself, delighting myself in him and in his word alongside his precious people by his strength which enlivens me.

    For God has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in him. Yet once we find our rest in him, or rather he finds us and gives us rest by giving us a new heart, a heart of flesh to replace our heart of stone, for the first time our hearts are opened wide to embrace and love him and others to the full. We are set free to love God and others to the full.

    This too is but the beginning of eternal life, which is to know God, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.

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  10. To "live life to the fullest" is a pretty subjective concept. I imagine that most would equate it to "do more enjoyable things."

    If one enjoys extreme sports, then one might live a filler life by doing more of that. Do more bungee jumping, body surfing, skydiving, etc.

    If one enjoys learning, then one might do more of that. Learn more languages, learn to play more instruments, etc.

    The fullness of a Christian life doesn't end when all these things pass away. Therefore, a Christian might have a fuller life suffering for the gospel, for the fruits are eternal.

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  11. Regarding TAM's comments on "living life to the fullest", I just want to say the humanist's reasons for "making the most of it" leave much to be desired. Indeed, it seems to me that life lived that way is nothing but an empty, meaningless, purposeless waste of time.

    If, ultimately, death is "the end of the road", then why dance on the surf? Why stop and smell the flowers? Why explore, discover, learn, or run that race? What good are any of those things if ultimately you die and that's it?? What makes one thing worth doing over another thing? Why not sit on the couch watching Seinfeld reruns until you die? Or, on the other extreme, begin your quest to take over the world at the point of a sword?

    In fact, how can ANYTHING have intrinsic value at all if ultimately all you have waiting for you is nothingness?

    If, ultimately, you die and that's it, then living with any sense of value attached to life is the epitome of self-deception. The flailing delusions of grandeur created by a mind enslaved to a cold, barren existence that cares nothing for him or the nothingness to which he thinks he is destined.

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