Movie of your life

I had a near-death experience the other week. Not in the true sense of the word, as I wasn't actually floating through the peaceful passageway usually mentioned by people who were clinically death for a while. I didn't see the blinding white lights, nor was I weightlessly hovering towards an eternity of rice pudding in golden bowls with matching spoons (which never appealed to me anyway: I'd rather settle for more copious portions of food, even if these are served in dog bowls and meant to be eaten with my hands tied behind the back). 

So what happened? I wanted to cross the street, one of these streets that doesn't have a traffic light telling you when to go, but for some strange reason my brain told me not to do so. Luckily enough, because the next thing I knew a crazy bad-ass wanna-be rally-driving nutcase raced past my nose. Leaving me gasping, and wondering what could have been no longer. This wasn't the first time something like this happened to me, and the same interesting question crossed my mind: exactly which part of the brain is it, that does this useful trick? I don't know the answer to this riddle (intuition? pre-historic instincts?), but I do know that I felt happy to (still) be alive. Because despite the fact that I am looking forward to seeing the movie of my life (Who will play me? What genre will it be?), I'm not ready for it yet. 

The incident also made me wonder: what did people expect to see when they passed away before the advent of moving images? The play of their life? Just imagine watching the story of your life in a Shakespearian version. Or as a traditional Indian Sanskrit drama performance - the horror... Nothing against drama obviously, but I'd prefer to be able to press pause every once in a while (getting more beer from the fridge, cutting more cheese cubes, going for a little wee), or skip certain passages forward. And backwards, for that matter. 

At least this explains why people claiming that eternal life awaits after we die, are actually right: after all, we will end up watching ourselves, watching ourselves. Ad infinitum.