From "Last Call--with our without Wings": "Maybe we don't have to Imagine, John. / We have no heaven in exchange for no hell" (7 McCollum).
In case anyone is not familiar with John Lennon's song "Imagine," it functions on idealism. Imagine there is no possession. Imagine there is no war. Imagine everybody loves everybody and we are happy.
Natalie's counter implies that there is no more wishful thinking needed, there is no more fight to attain this realm or leave that realm. She suggests an equilibrium state where, perhaps, each person is responsible for himself and each act is open for interpretation--is not bad, is not good, just is. Isn't it true that there really is no definitive line separating acts (or realms)?
If I murder someone, am I bad? Wonder if the person I murdered is "bad?" Then, what makes him bad and me good? Who decides? It's all subjective, yes? Or dependent on intention? Did I take pleasure in seeing someone suffer? Or was I just seeking revenge and I killed him swiftly, "righteously"? The "truth" is found more in the faith of ours acts than the acts themselves. This means that we create our own hells and our own heavens by self-punishment or self-liberation and this means that we can also dissolve them both.
Imagine . . .
It is just this kind of relativism that we have been warned about for millennia, and that has brought many in our world to the nihilistic state they experience every day. Heaven and Hell are not relative to one another. Heaven is love and creative impulse, Hell is a counterfeit of the same, very often not discernible from that which it attempts to copy.
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