I used the term "heaven" to indicate a state of mind, not a place you go after you die. We do all make choices like Charlie and probably with as little knowledge about what the true consequences would be as Charlie would have. We're well aware that we could and will lose a life that is as close as one can get to our individual version of heaven but this certainly doesn't stop many many us from choosing to find and create that life, because although we know it will not be permanent, we're willing to take the risk of going so high that, like Icarus, the fall will kill us. But what a ride it was.
The saddest people I know are the ones who for some reason, choose to destroy their own happiness through actions of choice.
What made me think about this is a really nice decent, intelligent, attractive, kind young adult I talked to recently, who deliberately destroys any relationship they have with a kind and caring person and who invariably goes back to one who is abusive, and I don't mean just a little bit abusive. I asked this person why and they replied, when I'm with a really good person I always think I don't deserve them. Yes this person had a bad life but it could have been much worse and the person's mother had a much worse life yet makes every effort to continue to improve her situation.
Some won't make the climb because of the pretty great certainly that they will fall, but others, like Charlie, go as high as they can because it's worth it to go there even temporarily.
(A legitimate reason to opt for burial rather than cremation - if at any point after your death medical problems in your living family appear to be inherited or there is some medical question about your death, they can always dig you up and check it out. Also it seems nicer to serve as fertilizer for plants and trees that produce oxygen than to pollute the air with the combustion byproducts)
