In the past few months, I have been wondering where he’d gone because he is usually very active on the net. I was a little bit afraid that the darkness would consume him as I feel that it was in there from our exchange of thoughts, but because I never knew him at personal level, I never asked the question. He left me a message before saying he will respond to my latest comment, but never did.

Weeks passed, and today I received a DM from his twitter account – @VinaMist notified me that Chris (lethe’s real name) had passed away a month ago. I was just at Taste Of Melbourne, in rapture after savouring the myriad of beautiful food and wine in that place. To receive news of death at such a joyous occasion is a new experience to me.

To be honest I feel for him, not many people connects to others with that amount of sincerity. He connects to people through his work – I feel that had he not died, he would have contributed greatly to the world of literature. He invited me once to converse over Skype, I wished I had taken that opportunity while it was still knocking on my door. But such is life, I guess.

I don’t think that the news ruined the experience. I accept that this is the nature of things, that for every beginning there is an end. At the back of my mind I wanted to know, how did he passed away? But for me who is on the other side of the world, and with no means to find out, it is a no-question. I will never know. And so I let go of the question and appreciate what little is left.

Lethe, this will be my final poetry for you. May you rest in peace, my friend.

The Day Turned

With eyes open I stepped outside;
on the pond was the moon,
reflected.

Darkness falls, the day is gone
and the sun’s warmth in my heart,
remembered.

Every entity in this world will go through this cycle of living and dying. Nothing shall escape it.

This applies to the most obvious entity of all, our own self. However this also applies to other concept in life. Take for example, a computer system.

A computer system is often the result of a software project. There is the moment where an idea is being formulated, a prototype is built to pitch the project, budget acquired, team formulated and grown, and finally, the project took off (birth). Over time, the system is crafted, again and again it is perfected, broken, fixed, patched, deployed. installed, broken again, fixed again, and so on (aging).

However, as software system changes hand from one team to another, fixes and enhancement done to it may or may not be in accordance with the original structure conceived by its creators. This will eventually result in various internal complication and inconsistencies. Sometimes it is not the software that age, but the hardware. Disks failing, cables aging, memory corruption, dead power supply, and so on. Indeed, nothing last forever! (sickness).

Finally, at some point, all software system will be retired. It may became obsolete, replaced by a newer system, or simply, broke down (death). On that fateful day, management, end-users, or whoever it is that work closely with the system will eventually look back and reflect upon the value it has contributed to the organization or end users. Even future systems implemented will be measured, directly or indirectly, against its older counterparts.

Therefore for those of you who works in the realm of computing, do keep in mind this principle. Take it to your heart that nothing in this world is permanent.

In doing so, when crafting and scoping a system, it is important that we ask ourself (and the client) – what is the intended lifecycle of this project or software system? how will it be supported and maintained? who will look after the system when your team is gone?

Remember that a software system is an entity as much as you are. How you write each of your system reflects your view and life-state in general. And verily so, you can infer the character of a programmer from a piece of code that he has written. From the various decision points he made which is visible in the way the system is structured, organized, partitioned and optimized.

Have that system lived a life worth living?

Well, have you?

Indeed it is true that truth emerges and lies stripped bare when one reflects upon Death. When the system has reached the end of its live, and your name written as craftsman of that system in the various source code and documentations that surrounds the system, how would you like to be perceived?

So if there is one credo for a programmer to follow, this would be it:

Live a life worth living – Craft a system worth crafting.
The two goes hand in hand.

Didn’t someone say…
“life is what happens when you are busy making plans”

In a blink, your life will be over.
Old age, sickness and Death, will soon be upon you.

When that moment come,
a question will enter your mind.

Have I lived a life worth living?

You will know the answer,
not from the amount of wealth you have created
nor from the conquest you have achieved,

But from the sum
of all the moments that you have lived
and the ones that you have missed.

Bodhidharma said:

When mortals are alive, they worry about death.
When they’re full, they worry about hunger.
Theirs is the Great Uncertainty.

But sages don’t consider the past.
And they don’t worry about the future.
Nor do they cling to the present.
And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

This is why even though I now live in Melbourne, on the death anniversary of people who are dear to me, I would chant an extra 30 minute on that day to honor the memory of that person.

I’m not really sad or anything like that, I understood the Law of life and death – that everything that has a beginning has an end. All entities goes through the cycle of birth, ageing, decay, and death.

Not only human beings, but also your table, your PC, your work, a music, a fruit, a fashion trend, fame, a happy moment, a sad moment, the earth, the sun, a star, even to problems – and so on and so forth. This cycle happens to everything, and so it is with our life.

What happens when we die?

(As far as I know) In Buddhism there are 2 big school of thought on what happen to our soul when we die. One school of thought reckons that the soul is eternal, when it enters the stage of Death, it will re-enter Nature. In time, it will be reborn into this world, thus continuing the motion of the cycle of reincarnation.

The other school of thought, which is less commonly found reckons that the soul is NOT eternal. When we die, we die. Our entity will permeates the universe and our soul dissapears. A very unique way of looking into Death.

Someone whom I really respect believes in this point of view – and he clearly indicates that the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin (which is the branch of Buddhism that I choose to be my way of life) states that this is so.

I never really get it before, but perhaps now I do.

Fade to black vs. Live forever

You see, I can remember my cousin quite well in my mind. I can picture him walking around, smiling, brooding, laughing and making jokes – I can even picture several scenarios, ‘what would he do if…’ kinda thing.

It is indeed very hard to prove or disprove as to what would happen to his soul after he died – we don’t even have any means to prove whether such a thing as a ‘soul’ exists or not. But nevermind that, because what happens to his soul doesn’t really matter to this discussion.

The point is, his entity as a being remains with the people that knew him. Some knew him as a brother, some knew him as a cousin, some knew him as a good friend, some knew him as a son, some only knew him as a story, or a gossip – and so on.

Whatever it is that happens to his body and soul -  any deeds, values and impacts that he has left behind, those things stays with us. Those things have changed us. Maybe the impact is very, very, very subtle. But nevertheless it is present.

We’re all connected?

It doesn’t really stops there, I guess. You see, he was really into gaming. In fact, he is one of the best DoTA player in Indonesia, definitely one of the key members of his gaming clan. His style of gameplay would have been copied, adopted and studied time and again, and have contributed to the style/gameplay of his friends (and enemies too, I bet). No doubt that his existence would have direct and indirect influence to people in his gaming circle.

My younger brother is very close to him. They share mutual respect and share a deep bond, despite the fact that they grew up in different country – his life, his struggle and his suffering affects my younger brother very much. And what goes though my younger brother’s life affects me, my closest relatives, and his close friends.

His story influences many people too. How he died at such a young age, what he could have become, what he has already achieved and so on. I was influenced by his story, and here I am writing this. Who knows what sort of chain of thoughts this piece of writing would set off in the minds of people who are reading this.

So in that sense, both school of thoughts are actually correct. He did pass away, and his soul would perhaps dissapear into nothingness (who knows), but a part of his entity would live on. In our memories, subtly influencing our way of life. Every time I remember him, a part of his entity that I remember would be born, age, decay, and die. Everytime anyone in DoTA enacted a particular trick / technique that he invented, everytime my brother joke around in the style of my cousin, that part of his entity is living a life on its own, being born and reborn over and over again.

I guess this is the case with all things. Simply by living alone, we are already making changes not only to ourselves, but also to everything around us. Our connection to others are inseparable, as do our connection with the environments, thus is the law of cause and effects.

We impact each other, directly or indirectly and thus we have a direct / indirect impact on everything else in this world, and everything else in this world has an impact on us. No matter how subtle, it is present.

Existence

So, what would I have left behind when I die? What values have I contributed to my friends, family, to my work place, to my wider social circle, to the world? What cause have I made, what effect have I set off throughout my existence so far?

I know that there are so much more things that I could do. I guess we just have to take it one step at a time.