Is There Life Before Death?

Living primarily in the future could make us psychologically “extinct” long before climate catastrophe does so biologically. It’s time to ask ourselves whether there is life before death, says Carolyn Baker.

- Carolyn Baker

Living primarily in the future could make us psychologically “extinct” long before climate catastrophe does so biologically. It's time to ask ourselves whether there is life before death...

For if not, we are as good as dead.

As the conversation about Near- Term Human Extinction (NTHE) grows increasingly deafening, I notice many people behaving as if they are already dead---and in fact they may be. Do we have 15 years, 20 years, 50 years? Should I move to another location? What’s the point of doing the job I now have? Why even have health insurance if I’m not going to be here anyway? And on it goes…

I have no problem with preparing for the future. I’ve been writing books on that topic for about six years. The future has come to meet us and smack us upside the head on just about every level imaginable. And…living primarily in the future takes a terrible toll on us in current time. In fact, it strip-mines our lives in the here and now and guarantees that we become “extinct” long before NTHE does its dirty deed.

Recently, I was watching an interview with mindfulness teacher, Jon Kabat-Zinn. When asked what he believes about life after death, Kabat- Zinn responded by saying that he doesn’t think about it much because he’s much more intrigued with whether or not there is life before death. If there isn’t life before death, he said, then we are already dead.

So how do we reconcile living life fully in current time with NTHE? The simplest response I have is: Give them equal time. Read the science, keep current with the news, talk about it with people with whom it is safe to do so, but give the present moment as much time as you give NTHE.

Giving the present equal time means committing to several necessary practices.