How do you imagine the afterworld?

Well, damn.

 

Wasteful or not, that's what writers do. We can't help it!

Given the number of human and other persons who have predeceased you, there ought to be enough company to choose from. Of course, there is no need for social and legal conventions such as marriage or proprietorship: presumably, every soul is entirely autonomous; free to choose how much of eternity to spend with which companions.
(Unless they're being punished or cleansed or whatever.)

Me too. So I make up a version that works for me.
Without, of course, believing for a single minute that it's possible.
It's only a story!

 

That's imaginative! I like it.

 

In my afterlife the world greets all regardless of their life choices. Mortal life is just an elaborate vacation for bored gods. And we are all gods who have removed our memories and turned to mortality to remind ourselves of what is important. Once we wake up from our mortal dream (when we die) we are taken into a large hall and are greeted by some of our fellow gods who explain everything to you. Either that or we just get some of our memories back.

Then we can do whatever we want, we can replicate our mortal life inside another simulation and play around with it as we please, we can forge entire new universes and be masters over them, or opt to live inside them as a mortal once more. Endless infinity of possibilities.

In one universe there is a monkey writing this exact post on a typewriter.

 

Sure that’s not this one? XD

 

I am more hairy than usual... and I have a thing for banana smoothies.

 

I've actually had this conversation with people in my immediate circle. I've come to realize the view of an afterworld depends on a combination of your beliefs, religious upbringing, personal experiences and wishful thinking. These are the different views I received:

1) The afterworld is permanent, and therefore, some sort of punishment. It is a bad place where you pay for all your sins in this life.
Your death is something to be feared because you will pay at the end. After all, we are all sinners in one form or another.

2) The afterworld is a place between Heaven and Hell, filled with lost souls who need to repent before moving on to the next level. It is not permanent and basically just a stopping ground. Your time here is limited. If you do not see the light you move on to Hell.

3) The afterworld is filled with peace. It is not dark in any sense of the word. Your soul finally comes to rest regardless of the life you lived.
Death is something to look forward to.

4) The afterworld is a platform where you stop and wait until you are ready to move on to the next life. You get off on different platforms, depending on where you are as far as spiritual development. You wait on this platform until the elders decide which lessons you still need to learn. They decide which life you will live next.
You can move on to a different era, as a different gender, in a different social status, but still travel with the same circle from life to life. You continue to live and die in each life, always returning to this platform. Once the elders determine you have learned everything you need, they finally open the gates to a heaven like place where you rest peacefully for eternity.

Maybe, in your story, you can use all these worlds. The character can choose which door to go through and that is the afterlife they experience.

 

Potassium is one of the key nutrients present in bananas, which is said to promote hair growth.
Your smoothies are possibly contributing to your hairiness.

 

I'm not too keen on eternal punishment, or reward, and so I gravitate towards believing in reincarnation. An eternal existence, but built on constant change and new experiences.

That said most of my story ideas don't delve into afterlife, beyond speculations (though I do like the idea of having characters from one story reincarnate into being some of the characters of a completely different story, just as little easter eggs for me and over-analyzing readers).

There is one idea of mine that is partly inspired by the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. In this story the heroine dies and then has to travel through the underworld in an attempt to escape it. But the underworld is filled with tests and temptations designed to get the dead to forget their mortal life. If they can return to the gates of the underworld with their memories intact, then they can return to the land of the living. If they completely forget who they were, then they are reborn.

 

I didn't see your comment and first thought it was an amazingly clear color shot of postwar Germany.

 

I have a basic view of the afterworld. I believe it way you can finally be a peace and rest.

 

A place I'll eventually want to leave out of boredom.

 

In her 1986 album Home of the Brave, Laurie Anderson says "Paradise is exactly like where you are right now, only much, much better."

 

Heaven: A place where you get to spend eternity with the love of your life.
Hell: A place where you get to spend eternity with your mother-in-law.

 

Only, what did that gracious old lady ever do to deserve eternity with you?

 

If it were heaven, then like Earth, only without other people.
If it were hell, then like Earth as it is now.

 

Now look what you'll made me do! I've reposted the Henderson story (final edited version) in Humour.

 

Assuming there is an afterlife, I sincerely hope that I don't get the afterlife I have earned.

 

What a fascinating thread, I'll never get any writing done...

We're a sociable lot, us writers

Oooooh!...please elaborate

Me thinks the afterlife is anything you think it is … ain't no one gonna tap you on the shoulder and tell you that you lied...

 

I don't. I imagine that spirits / ghosts remain in our world, and either Heaven or Hell are actually "states of soul", so to speak. So Heaven is eternal bliss, and Hell is eternal torment.

 

Sometimes I think it's like in The 6th Sense and Poltergeist, where some of the dead walk among us and don't know they're dead. Perhaps in order to allay the pain of being unable to interact with the living, they stay in and spend a lot of time in the purgatory known as the Internet, and interact with each other.

 

I think I might be dead.

 

Just like the pretty young woman on the TV show, "Upload" said, "I think, therefore, I am". Pretty and smart is a tough combination to beat.