Resolution of the World
When I occasionally return home and ride the trains in Tokyo, I am surprised by the sheer number of people. Naturally, each and every one of them has a story of birth, a life that followed, and ultimately, an episode of death. Each possesses a subjective perspective and a sense of self, yet to me, someone who just happened to board the same train, they are all just 'mobs.' The reverse is also true. When I ride a crowded train, I become strangely conscious of this, and it feels like I'm suffocating.
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Where does a person's consciousness go when they die? When we view 'death' biologically, it is merely the cessation of life functions. The heart stops, breathing in the lungs ceases, and the functions of the central nervous system come to a halt. That is truly all there is to it. All of our human thoughts are built upon signal transmission within the central nervous system. Therefore, for that to stop—in other words, to die—means that we can no longer communicate, share memories, or have others remember us. I know that in my head, I should understand this. But it is hard to believe that the vast amount of information etched into that brain until just yesterday could all vanish without a trace. In truth, I want them to be sleeping, soul and all, somewhere far away. This is selfish, but because we never forget those who have passed away, I want their souls to never forget us either. When I thought that, I felt that perhaps that is why people in the past believed in reincarnation.
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I arrived at the floor with the observation deck. The elevator opened, and I stepped out into the hustle and bustle. I took slow steps, one by one, toward the wide-open windows.
Standing before the thick glass window, a cityscape of infinitely continuing buildings spread out below me. Though invisible to the eye, the thought that there are so many lives within each of those buildings makes me feel faint. As if to bless those lives, the sunlight broke through the clouds and poured down from the sky.
This text was created with inspiration from the song 'Resolution of the World' by amazarashi.