Pandora's Box
Life is often comparable to a Pandora's Box - you can't figure
out what's inside it.  You could only if you are willing to
destroy it.  A Pandora's Box is also an other thing - Danger. 
You must be willing to pay the toll of you actions when you open
it.  What is to say that my Pandora's Box comparison is real
though?
Life is always a mystery.  Are we ever actually awake, or are we
always dreaming?  Are we from the imaginations of our own minds,
or are we ONE?  There is really no way to ever find out.  If we
do spend time actually awake then it is possible who we are is
formed by our subconscious minds.  Our mind would always be in
the background, whispering our likes and dislikes, our desires,
our pleasures, our sins.  We all hear the voices, but we don't
all hear them in the same way.  Some people, labelled crazy or
schizophrenic, hear them as aural voices, whispering into their
ears, telling them what to do.  Others may see them, as ghosts of
ancestors, come back to warn them of a path not safe to take. 
Others may claim "free will" but they are still slaves of their
own subconscious minds.  Some hear the voices and choose to
ignore them, feeling that the voices should be repressed unless
they judge themselves, ot think others will judge them, insane.
There is no real insane tho.  Many think i am insane.  But if
there is no such thing as sanity, then how can they claim that? 
Because i am not the same as them.  I admit hearing the voices. 
I don't always follow the voices, but nor do i claim to believe
free will.  Free will is what people who follow their voices
without fully hearing them claim to have.  Is their will truly
free?  No.  They must answer the same calls that anyone else
must, but they feel that they aren't.  What about the people
whose voices tell them to break laws?  Don't we all have that
urge at one point in our life?  Not all of us act on the urge. 
Most of us who consider it will do something dumb and illegal (or
well thought out, but not very illegal), but nothing as serious
as a capital crime.  Those who refuse to believe in the voices,
unless they be labelled insane, tend to consider the voices
urges.  They simply have 'the urge' to have sex with a lover, but
have no voice telling them to.  All of these are normal (a word
which has no true meaning).
What if we are never awake though?  There is nothing to say that
we ever wake up from our sleep, that our entire life isn't just
one long (or short) subconscious episode, or dream.  Our entire
life, never actually real, but simply random firings of neurons
(if its part of an actual body).  Could our entire life be
nothing more then a huge mental network, made of minute
electro-chemical interactions between matter and energy, not
formed of any actual substance?  It is entirely possible.  If
that is the case then no other "people" exist... each of us lives
in our own "dream".  Everything invilved in our lives is made up
as we go.  We think that we are touching real things, but real is
what we think it is.  So why do we sleep and dream even if we are
not more than dreams anyway?  Because even as only mental energy
still we need rest.  No matter what, the mind still needs rest. 
Besides, what is to say that the dreams that are our lives are
not those of some higher being when they are asleep, and our
dreams are when that being is awake.  Anything is possible.
Is each person their own dream, or are we all the same dream?  If
each person is their own dream than each dream may be different. 
So i may dream of one time or any other thing, and what i dream
or what i am may be totally different from any others, if they
even exist.  What if we are all one dream?  Then, in that case,
we all intereact, not with parts of our own subconscious (which
we do, but we wouldn't have a subconscious supposedly), but with
other parts of the dreamer's subconscious.  Each of us would
represent a different mix of the dreamer's mind.  We would all
share traits of the dreamer's personality, some of them
represses, others dominant, varying from person to person.  But
how could a full world be part of a dream?  The dream could be
part of a group mind, where the dream is not dreampt by a single
individual, but many, mentally linked to form a single, massive
mind.  If that is the case, then individuals, or even families in
these dreams may be formed by the subconscious of a single
individual in this massive neural network.  Other items in the
mental aether around us would be formed by our own layered
existance.  We would be a consciousness within a subconscious,
with our own subconscious level.  If this is the case we could be
supporting our own world within the group aether of our own
lives.  But what if we are all layers of a single entity?  If
that is the case than that entity has an extremely complex and
layered mind.  Each group within our world would be a different
layer of the mind (ie. russians would be one layer, british
another, et al.)  Each layer has to interact to function, but
each layers function may have nothing to do with what we see in
our "world."  It would be possible that we are part of the mental
capacity that every being has, but does not seem to use.  That
could be true whether it is a group or single mind we are part
of.  So much of our own mental capacity is unrealized, maybe that
is why.  Our unknown mental functions are not our own, but simply
part of one neverending mental layer/link.  Am i the one writing
this, or is one of my other mental levels writing this, and as
one does all of the other mental levels in the the dream follow
suite?  Herein lies the problem.  If we are all composed of
unending mental levels, and also a part of a neverending puzzle,
are we independent, or are we trapped in the puzzle and
controlled by the actions of our other layers(selves)?  If we are
trapped and controlled by our other selves, that would explain
how one could be "torn apart by indecision."  But we could also
do the same thing on all layers.  But if we are independent of
our other layers, what then?  They could be the voices of our
subconscious, and each of them with their own subconscious voice,
going infinitely deep.  It simply isn't known how the
sunconscious works.
That is one reason why i compare life to a Pandora's Box.  No
matter how much is known about it, you never know enough to
understand what it is, or how it works.  Like a Pandora's Box,
the inside of life is well hidden.  We spend most of our lives
trying to learn the secrets of life.  You can do that for free,
but you must never try to force your hand.
When Pandora's Box was broken open to learn the secrets of its
insides, all manners of misfortune and horror or death came out. 
Pandora had warned not to open his box, but to learn its secrets
without opening it.  Pandora's Box was deffinately not meant to
be opened.  Much like Pandora's Box, life is not meant to be
opened.  Life, its meanings, forms, and functions are meant to be
studied.  Medicine is only a part of that study, and so is
religion (to a smaller degree).  But medicine understands so
little about the mind.  Why do you suppose that is?  Because the
mind more than anything else is the basis of life.  If you tamper
to much with the mind you can damage it beyond any hope of
repair.  The brain was made fragile to prevent the discovery of
much about how life works and why it continues.  Like Pandora's
Box, open it to peek inside, and you won't discover much but
death and destruction.
You have to be willing to accept the consequences of your actions
with life.  To fail to do so leaves you open to recreating
mistakes that do so much damage.  You try to manipulate a mind,
but end up destroying it, expect to yourself be destroyed.  One
cannot do something without having to pay a price for the damage
they have caused.  Be careful what box you open.  Not all of them
can be closed again.

written copy finished 10-01-2002 @ 1050 EdT
typed copy with editting finished 10-08-2002 @ 0916 EdT