So, Joseph Smith waxed eloquent on the social aspects of the before life, and the afterlife. We get a pithy summary courtesy of Orson Pratt and William Clayton:
“that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there”
And this makes me shiver a bit. Niles Crane, fictive Seattle psychiatrist expresses my thought best:
I’ve always liked the notion [after I die] of meeting the great figures of history. But then I think, what if it’s like high school, and all the really cool dead people don’t want to hang out with me?*
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*On the wall in the St. George temple is a painting. All those cool dead people? They’re hanging out with Wilford Woodruff.
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
Ha! Yeah, I’ve never understood D&C 130:2: we’ll have the “same sociality” there that exists here, but it won’t be quite the same, since “it will be coupled with eternal glory.” So, “the same sociality” = not the same. In other words, all the high school nerds are probably OK.
Cold comfort, Hunter. Cold comfort.
ll those cool dead people? They’re hanging out with Wilford Woodruff.
Heh.
Is the meaning of the word restoration to take a thing of a natural state and place it in an unnatural state, or to place it in a state opposite to its nature? Son, this is not the case.
I felt a cold shiver as I read your post!
Oh, PROtology. For a minute there, I was wondering what all this had to do with butts.
If the afterlife turns out to be anything like my high school experience, I’ll just embrace social hell and hang out with the other misfits. So long as the company is good…
So if i had you for 541, 641 and 642, does that mean i get to hang out w you? and will i have to do those damn set theory worksheets again and again for eternity??
If the afterlife is like high school in any way, it will mean that none of us have learned anything from our earth experience. Or, if the same sociality that exists here will be there, I’m going to happily remain in outlier territory. One thing I have learned about the outlier sector that I hope to retain is that there are a lot of underground cool people lurking in the most unexpected places.
If the afterlife is going to be like high school, then none of you will even notice if I’m there.
dave, I was thinking much the same thing. I already had to repeat 312 once, why would I want to repeat it again.
no, no…im happy to hang out with wvs; i just dont want to do set theory again.
Dave, I think you have to GRADE the homework. If you go Telestial you repeat 110 for eternity. They slap your hand with a ruler if you utter the word ‘derivative.”
I feel a little weird admitting it, but eternal increase does not particularly appeal to me. It is my fondest hope that the afterlife will resemble a giant music festival, where you just go from stage to stage, meeting and talking with an endless stream of fascinating people and running into old friends and ancestors who predeceased you and posterity born after your death and listening to bands play for all of eternity. Hopefully, resurrected bodies won’t need to go to the bathroom every couple of hours or have aching feet.
In the immortal words of Billy Joel, I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. ;)
My wife refers to the high school graduates that never moved past their glory days as “super seniors.” I have no problems seeing them stuck in the same sociality in the next life. It’s equally easy for me to imagine the rest of us continuing to move forward, leaving them to relive their former glories. (The nice thing about not having former glories is that I have little to get stuck on)