Is there a here-after? Danged if I know! Of course; we can hope, pine, crave, desire, want, need, hanker, fancy, itch, burn, and go hell-bent for a here-after, but no-one can prove, or disprove such a place exists. The only "possible truth" I'm certain of is that my "present" is the "here-after" of those before me, and their "present" was the "here-after" of those before them, and my "here-after" is the "present" of those who will be here after I'm thrown in a hole in the ground. But the "here-after" you're thinking of is, more than likely, not the "here-after" just described.



Yet that's all right, for if everyone's "present" and "here-after" were all equivalent, they would be equally monotonous. However, there are a few things in this life that remain the same, and yet change... and "time" is one of them! As Albert Einstein once stated, "There's something about the NOW". With every next second, there is a new NOW for each one of us...a new "present" My "past now" may be your "new present", depending on if you are younger or older than me. Whatever locks us in every "new present" is known by many words - such as; spirit, soul, awareness, consciousness, sentient sentientness, and a myriad of other words and phrases. The nomenclature doesn't matter; but I personally believe its core lies in the area of the brain stem, and works in tandem with our curiosity.

Why? Curiosity itself is the very foundation from which mankind derives the overwhelming craving to seek out and discover whatever may b e lurking somewhere that is extremely difficult to get to...it must be impractical, perplexing, expensive, irksome, formidable, and very complicated, or we wouldn't have to design and build something complicated to get to it - if it is there at all!

It's the same situation when we spend hours getting prepared for a date, and anticipating _____________(you fill in the blank)...we are never sure "whatever you put in the blank space", in the first place. Just ponder for a while how very boring this life would be if curiosity didn't wander throughout our awareness stirring up trouble. We would still be tiny creepy things slithering and groveling about on this asteroid with nothing to do but slither and grovel around, and procreating until a larger creepy thing decided we appear appetizing and ate us - or decided we were not appetizing and stepped on us.

Now postulate on how exciting the "here-after" would be if billions of us creepy organic matters just slithered and groveled around with nothing to do but stare at someone called god. If we creepy things had minds, it would be a very mind-numbing experience. And if we think that would be dreary for us, consider how arduous and fatiguing it would be for god - who would definitely have a mind. I would imagine that he/she (political correctness) would be rather irate with billions of us creepy crawlies just staring at him/her for all eternity. Such a sustained goings-on might cause he/she to pause and reconsider the decision of creating us in the first place.

Therefore, since there is always a new "now", there will evermore be a new "here-after." When our biological parts are tossed into the ground, and our "awareness" navigates from this universe, through the ebony tunnel, to another "dimension," it only stands to solid deductive reasoning our curiosity is going to tag along so we don't become boring creepy slitherers. Which will be absolutely great; for then we will be in a brand new and sparkling universe to get all "ga-ga" over. Our curiosity will engage, and we will be off and running to invent new complicated and expensive faster things ...so we can see farther, delve deeper, go higher, and produce new neat gadgets to put into our un-imaginable abodes, and tell god "Yep, I've got one of those!'

Naturally, we will set around in the evenings and wonder if there's another "here-after". To sum it up, the "here" and "here-after" is an on-going learning experience. Besides; there is no possibility that a" god" and/or "creator" is going to plant my happy self on such a beautiful planet, in a wondrous galaxy, and in an picturesque universe, with all their mind crunching mysteries, ill-logical logic, invincible power, eye-pleasing pleasures, intricate designs, intrinsic operations, and it's eventual shape. Neither nothing nor no-one would create me, empower me with a method of learning all there is to know, inaugurate me with an immense imagination, and motivate me with an unceasing curiosity, and then just let me die!