I Am Dying
Every day, with every breath I draw, I am closer to the end of my life. For we are born with a finite number of breaths, and each one I take edges the sunlight that is mu life toward the inevitable dusk.
It is a difficult thing to remember, espically while we are in the health and strength of our youth, and yet, I have come to know that it is an important thing to keep in mind-not to complain or to make melancholy, but simply because only with the honest knowledge that one day I will die can I ever truly begin to live. Certainly I do not dwell on the reality of my own mortality, but I that a person cannot help but dwell, at least subconsciously, on that most imposing specter until he has come to understand, to truly understand and appreciate, that he will one day die. That he will one day be gone from this place, this, this consciousness and existence, to whatever it is that awaits. For only when a person completely and honestly accepts the inevitablitiy of death is he free of the fear of it.
So many people, it seems, stick themselves into the same routines, going through each day's ritual with almost religious precision. They become creatures of simple habit. Part of that is the comfort afforded by familiartiy, but there is another aspect to it, a deep-rooted belief that as long as they keep everything the same, everything will remain the same. Such rituals are a way to control the world about them, but in truth, they cannot. For even if they follow the exact routine day after day after day, death will surely find them.
I have seen other people paralyze their entire existence around that greatest of mysteries, shaping their every movement, their every word, in a desperate attempt to find the answers to the unanswerable. They fool themselves, either through their interpretations of ancient texts or through some obscure sign from a natural eveent, into believing that they have found the ultimate truth, and this, if they behave accordingly concerning that truth, they will surely be rewarded in the afterlife. This must be the greatest manifestation of that fear of death, the errant belief that we can curtain its windows and place its furniture in accordance with our own desperate desires.
I believe them to be wrong, though in truth, I cannot know anything for certain concerning what mystery lies beyond this mortal coil. And so I, too, am but a creature of faith and hope. I hope that my friends have found eternal peace and joy, and pray with all my hear that when I cross over the threshold into the next existence, I will see them again.
Perhaps the greatest evil I see in this existence is when supposedly holy men prey upon the basic fears of death of the common folk to take from them. "Give to the church!" they cry. "Only then will you find salvation!" Even more subtly are the many religions that do not directly ask for a person's money, but insits that anyone of goodly and godly heart who is destined for their particular description of heaven, would willingly give that money over.
And of course, the world is ripe with "doomsdayers," people who claim that the end of the world is at hand, and cry for repentance and for almost slavish dedication.
I can only look at it all and sign, for as death is the greates mystery, so it is the most personal of revelations. We will not know, none of us, until the moment it is upon us, and we cannot truly and in good conscience convince another of our beliefs.
It is a road we travel alone, but a road that I no longer fear, for in accepting the inevitable, I have freed myself from it. In coming to recgonize my mortality, I have found the secret to enjoying those centuries, years, months, days, or even hours, that I have left to draw breath. This is the existence I can control, and to throw away the precious hours over fear of the inevitable is a foolish thing indeed. And to subconsciously think ouerselves immortal, and thus not appreciate those precious few hours that we all have, is equally foolish.
I cannot control the truth of death, whatever my desperation. I can only make certain that those moments of my life I have remaining are as rich as they can be.
