CLOUD ATLAS YOU'RE ALL WET

Recently, I saw the movie CLOUD ATLAS. I enjoyed it, although I found it too long and too fragmented. The amazing make-up on the actors and their transformations alone, made it worth seeing.

I think the premise had to do with reincarnation and how we are all interconnected, because love transcends death. -- Well that's just a load of bull! -- Whatever love there was in my family didn't even survive this lifetime!

I'm a believer in reincarnation, but I've never believed human beings are intrinsically good. There is too much evidence to the contrary!

Of course the role of religion is to get people to behave by scaring them with a hellish eternal punishment or promising a big payoff in the hereafter. Otherwise, I guess most wouldn't even try!

At least with karma, lessons can be learned over time. Eventually souls can be cleansed and move on to a higher level. I've been told by those in the know, that people come back in clusters. We are surrounded by the same group each time. -- I find that thought truly distressing! Oh God, please, I want a different cluster!!! Also I don't want to be reunited with any of those people in death.

Several decades back, I saw a TV interview with Bette Davis on 60 MINUTES. Now I have never been a fan of Ms. Davis either as an actress or a person. Usually she turns me off big time! But she said something quite profound, that I've always remembered. To paraphrase her, "Given enough time, any relationship will break down. What is truly important in life is the body of work we leave behind." When you stop to think about this, it's true! Although we are brainwashed to think the opposite.

I know so many women who feel diminished if they are not in a relationship with a man. -- I've always felt more empowered! The happiest and most fulfilling days of life emerged when I became one hundred per-cent alone. The men who wanted a relationship with me seemed too much a stifling extension of my parents. I felt suffocated! I'm free at long last to make my own mistakes, rather than be forced to live with the consequences of someone else's.

There's a true story about a fellow in a hospital bed who opened his eyes and saw all his dead relatives gathered around him. He sat up and hollered, "Get the hell away from me! I'm not going anywhere with you!" -- My sentiments exactly!

In my version of Heaven, I'll be one hundred per cent alone. My real friends can visit from time-to-time. But mostly, I want solitude, surrounded by beautiful nature and animals.