I’m going to be strangely philosophical for a moment…
I’ve been thinking about death.
Before you panic…no, I’m not planning on doing anything drastic. I’ve simply been thinking about recent events: the London bombings, the unexpected passing of a close friend’s family member…
To be honest, I don’t think much of my own mortality. Perhaps I’m just another product of a generation that thinks itself immortal — nothing can hurt us, nothing can stop us. But with everything that’s been happening recently, I’ve begun to have momentary lapses into quiet reflection…and I’ve been going to some strange mental places.
For the first time, I’ve been imagining what this world will be like when my parents are gone…when people I’ve known for decades are suddenly not there…hell, I’ve begun to wonder how it will feel the moment my eyes shut forever. Will I see the infamous tunnel of light? Will it be nothing but a void? And how long do I have left? Will I walk into a subway station one day and be ripped apart by a bomb? Am I fooling myself, thinking I have 50+ more years left to live…?
I’m not fooling myself. I’m still a young man, with an incredible life left to live…and to hell with melancholy.
There will always be sadness and disaster in life. There will be moments where many of us (including me) will feel that there’s nothing left to live for. But life goes on. Babies are born, students graduate, people get married, find new careers…that’s what we need to concentrate on. The happiness, the joy…the sheer thrill of life…will always triumph. Sometimes, it simply takes a long while to see it, especially for those hit by tragedy.
But…time will march on. We get on with our lives…we get on with building our futures. Someone once said “death is the price we pay for progress”. In a tragedy, when people are taken from us early, we may not see this…but one day, we will realize that, even in the short span of time they had, our loved ones contributed to the sum total of our human adventure. One way or another, no matter how small or how large, they will have left their mark…and we are left to build on it and honour it. Buidling on their skills and talents…or on their love, as family and friend.
Life goes on — we have to keep living. Naturally, we mourn a tragedy, but we must remeber the incalculable good that person (or persons) brought to our lives, and to the wider world. Forgetting…succumbing to long term despair, and not celebrating their legacy…would be the real tragedy.
Does any of this make sense…or am I just rambling? Either way, I needed to sort out some mental debris…we’ll see how this reads a year from now…
