Writing

The Meaning Of Life

Between birth and death is a strange and curious thing called life.  Life is a never-ending prologue of unscripted events punctuated by our experiences of triumph and defeat, our choices and decisions all half-chance.  Life is a game of give-and-take as we strive for those experiences and goals we crave.

We surround ourselves with those we love, and try our best to gracefully distance ourselves from those we hate. The wars we wage upon each other are the result of greed and disagreement fueled by our own insecurities and desires we somehow allow to ravage out of control.  Likewise, the wars we wage upon ourselves are the result of our own insecurities fueled by our own self-created misconceptions of how others perceive us to be.

Our world leaders and celebrities are the only iconic images of wealth and perfection and our ideals of how we all should be; as we cheer them on as they climb the ladder to the top, we are disappointed by their flaws that remind us that they’re human like us, we seek to destroy the pedestal we placed them upon.  The flaws we seek to point out in others are the same flaws that we obsess about, secretly hoping nobody will point out about us.

The media is quick to remind us that we must all strive to lose weight, marry only attractive people, have lots of over-achieving children, and make obscene amounts of money, the likes of which we couldn’t possibly need or have the chance to enjoy while we lose sight of whats really important.  As a society we have traded in our quality of life for materialism and wealth in a race to nowhere while all around us the less fortunate are neglected, ignored, and left by the wayside.

Death is the cousin of sleep and the only thing we can be sure of is our own eventuality as we struggle to have the experiences and objects we desire before our time is up, while all around us people are telling us the end is near.  It’s too late when we die to start living and the funerals we plan for ourselves are not for us, but to provide comfort to those we leave behind.

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