Of course, all things ultimately turn to dust. Did you think you had more time? It's beyond control, a bull that only sees red. Even as you watch it charge toward you, you are powerless to keep it at a standstill. That is change and it is inevitable. Whether it makes a sudden or slow approach, it comes all the same, and it takes and it gives, destroys and creates, deconstructs and reconfigures.
And so the question truly is: why must you be so petrified? You will perish all the same, so why not take some grace in it? Do not bow down to it, take its hand and venture forth with it. You must lay down your spears, but don't turn your back from it. This is not a surrender, it is an embrace. Do not fear change. It is just another natural occurrence, like how the sun rises and sets, and how dusk turns to dawn, and on some days it rains. That which is just a natural component of life (an essential one at that, for nothing can persist without change) is undeserving of your contempt. Accept it. Take its hand and guide it, and through that effort, be wed with it and become restored anew.
Watch as that raging bull becomes reduced to a simple calf when you extend your arms before it and say, "Come here little one, you don't mean no harm." and be witness to that, to change and how it cannot harm you, for change is good and all that is good adores you. And what of waste?
If it feels wasteful, then it’s wasteful. A waste of a life means turning to desolation, which is a choice. An act of self-injury that becomes self-definition. Are you a dog, dependent on a master? The world neglects you, so how will you survive? That’s settling for a disastrous fate. If it’s so undesirable, then why have you chosen it? A choice is guided by a desire, not a lack thereof, even if the choice appears to be inaction, as even that in itself is an action. Do you still choose to move toward self-ruin knowing this?
You are not a dog, you are a man. Pleasure, pain, desire, fear; it’s all so irrelevant. Are you governed by such simple things? What is it that feels so wasteful? Stop choosing filth and look at what goodness awaits that is so undeniable like a light flashing in your face to the point of blindness. Even with your eyes closed, it still burns through its image. Grasp it. Firmly. You are still flickering with life.
And if it becomes dust, let it. It all returns to one form. In essence, you are already dead and you have been dead since you were born, because in the end, we are all fated to die. And is the terminus such a thing to be feared? You have already died many times. How many incarnations have passed before you? Even the incarnation writing this essay will soon pass, his flesh, bones, and blood becoming the text of this composition. A type of death: that is change too. And what of it?
Forgive him. Mourn him. Then put him to rest and live out what's left because in the end, that's all we have. You only have this life. Yes, you are already dead, but you are alive too, and as maddening a condition such as that is, you must embrace that absurdity and pursue goodness. You must pursue change. You must pursue our own demise, in the sense that you must strive toward living the most fulfilling life you can, such that every incarnation of you can rest soundly knowing you did all you could and that your efforts managed to push you forward so that every life you live from then on can be more enriched than the next.
Pleasure, pain, desire, fear: these are simple things indeed. And you allow them to govern you? That is unavoidable, it is okay to admit. For without these sensations, could one refer to themselves as a human being? The question that arises then, based on what was said before, was this all some elaborate contradiction? That is not what was meant to be suggested.
You just can't allow these things to become you. One cannot be consumed by pleasure, or pain, or desire, or fear. You will feel these things, that is inevitable, but to allow them to govern your will is beyond a personal disfavor, it is disgraceful and unbecoming. You are not a man of pleasure, a man of pain, a man of desire, or a man of fear. You are man, all-encompassing and so full of goodness, to have your existence be reduced to these mere epithets would be akin to forcing a dagger into your heart because then you will truly have died, and not in the natural sense, but in the sense you are without humanity.
Is there a God? Unknowable. But what guides you, what guides me, is that in the end of the day, you have yourself to live for. The conviction that empowers me so does not need a title or needs prayer. In the face of the void, in the face of nothingness, I have everything. And if I make a mistake, what of it? Does the world crumble before me or are my surroundings unharmed and indifferent? The weight of a mistake is not so crushing it brings the world down with it. The sun still shines and the rain still pours. What does not harm the world cannot harm me.
And what of the world? The saying goes, "To imitate or loathe the world." My decision? Become the world. Only I am in control of how I perceive and define the world. I will absorb it and become one with it. Imitate it? Why would I? I accept the natural processes that govern life, but the world is at odds with itself, and I must be good and at peace. Loathe it? Why would I loathe this world, which has allowed my experience to be so full and wondrous?
In my eyes, these eyes that contain the same cosmos that surround us, one must become the world. Have patience, understanding, appreciation, and love. No matter how I change, some things are so fundamental we will carry them with us into our next life. It is worth it.
We are all connected by a holy web, weaving our own narratives and allowing our threads to come together; experiences fastened into one.
I have been indelibly touched by people I have never met.
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Knowable influences and credits:
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Seneca
Personal experiences
Anecdotes, conversations from friends
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