I’m grading and watching another lovely Ambient Renders scene in which I can see the skyline of a cyberpunk city and listen to the rain falling against the windows. It chills me out. It makes me wonder who or what I would be in another life. I think about this more and more in relation to understanding the vastness of creation. What if we do come back as other people? What would that be like? What would I want the other me to be, to experience, to want? Most of my life has been spent writing fiction; pulling experiences from different realities and presenting them to an audience through the lenses of characters they could enjoy. I wonder from time to time how much of that is part of the fabric of our reality. When we die our energy goes somewhere and although the ‘we’ we are now is held together by memory, pain, and desire, what happens to our self–our soul when we let all of that go? Does it flow into another life?
I think, if I did experience another life, I would want that to have moments like my Ambient Renders. I think I would like to be sitting by a fire watching the rain come down against the windows and across a city lit in shades of neon. I think I would want to experience a reality where people were all moving in the same direction towards a larger understanding; a brighter future where the concept of personal wealth didn’t drive us to the lengths of insanity it does in our present reality.
Perhaps the things I want from beyond reflect the things I don’t have here. It is an easy reach to see and accept that. The truth is that my reality is unnecessarily dark and sad, and even the brightest moments are marred by worry and by fear. We shouldn’t have to live like this, but I have fought against it my entire life to no avail. We’re just conditioned to a certain way of being, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. So, I’ll watch and listen to these beautiful renders and imagine a world of what if.