And then there is nothing

And then there is nothing… I was listening to a book review recently on the radio. The interview was with the author (sort of) and the subject was the Titanic. It seems that the gentleman’s grandfather, through no fault on his part, became a survivor and was rescued and then continued on to New York. While traveling to New York, he wrote of his experiences of this disaster. His writings are within the book that was being reviewed, hence my “sort of” comment. The book was finished and published by the grandson.

Anyway, during the interview the gentleman stated that if his grandfather had not made the decisions that he had that night, he in fact would not be here today. I heard that and started thinking about it, ‘not be here today’. I mean his thoughts, expressions, physical body would not exist, and there would be nothing. It’s like when someone dies, there is nothing. Some people might argue that point, be that as it may. Also, to extend this thought a bit, if that gentleman had died that night, any potential descendants would just not exist as well. I wonder, moving into future generations, how many more would not exist. It could be hundreds, or thousands. The impact could not be known. There would be hundreds and thousands of nothing. It’s unimaginable.

Now we can move forward a little bit in time and my wife and I are sitting having dinner with some good friends at their home and somehow the subject of the Titanic comes up. We were told the story of his grandmother and the Titanic. It seems that she had tickets and was going to sail aboard the Titanic, but for a personal reason had to delay her trip. She sold the tickets to someone on the dock prior to sailing. Our friend stated that he wouldn’t be here if she had taken that ship.

Now, this is getting close to home as we would not have our very good friends. It’s amazing the ramification of our decisions that we make. Because she sold that ticket, we have good friends.

It is really mind boggling if you sit and think about this, isn’t it? The only difference between someone dying and someone not ever being born is that after dying there was someone there. In the other case the person that was never there would be only there in your mind if you just happened to think about someone that never existed. Strange.