When I was little my brother and I would pose that question to each other. Then we’d seriously consider it! But there is no good answer. It’s like the Kobayashi Maru that Captain Kirk finessed in Star Trek.
I think of that dilemma as I assist residents in my mom‘s memory care unit. Would you rather be physically infirm and unable to do anything for yourself, but with a sharp mind? Or, would you rather have all your physical abilities with a mind lost to dementia?
The Course answer is that neither matters. Each is a classroom designed by us to challenge us in the ways that seem most personally challenging. So it is that the person who swore she’d kill herself before becoming one who wanders aimlessly, is now just that. Or the person who always tried to control everyone and everything to have some sense of peace can now control nothing.
Yet, none of this is really necessary, is it? And that takes me back to Kirk’s solution. He was going through a simulation training that posed an unwinnable ethical dilemma, but he refused to believe the basic premise that there wasn’t another option. He snuck in and reprogrammed the simulation to allow a better choice.
The Course tells us the world is illusion and “not understandable.” In that sense, we exist in a Kobayashi Maru. Yet, the Course also tells us, if we reprogram there is a way out. “There is no sense in trying to understand it. But there is every reason to let it go.” (OrEd.WkBk.51.4)
As long as we keep trying to fix our material world, we haven’t let it go, We are, in essence, continually trying to decide if we would rather be eaten by a lion or a bear. Let’s reprogram!