There’s no antidote to death—we’re destined to die.

And since there’s a limit to how long we get to live, we behave as though there’s no limit in how we live.

I woke up this morning overcome with complete apathy. Suddenly, I saw no point to anything much at all. I thought to myself that everyone’s either a fraud, a goon, or a sellout. The world is corrupt and as we all very well know rigged to serve the few at the expense of the many. I got to thinking of all that currently plagues society and concluded that we are surely and ungracefully heading toward disaster and self-destruction. 

Now, to be clear, this wouldn’t be the first time I find myself drowning in the doom and gloom that surrounds us, bewildered at how our species has even managed to survive human idiocy. The difference, this time, however, is that as I surfed my mind trying to find reason for the unreasonable, instead of ending on my usual note of optimism where I remain hopeful that my views might be slightly dystopian and unhelpful, I confidently concluded that: NOTHING IS TO MAKE ANY SENSE—if it did, humans wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Because for as long as humans have existed, we’ve all been especially preoccupied in equally perpetuating and preventing all the nonsense. 

 So, after many hours of painful pondering, I surrendered to the fact that life has an awful ending (spoiler alert): we die. And between the time we’re born until the day we die, we’re sadly aware that our time is ticking. And every single action we take and decision we make—whether consciously or subconsciously–is ultimately in consequence of this irrefutable shit fact. The good news, of course, is that we’re just as good at denial as we are at dying. The bad news is that we’re not all that good at dying—this is probably what makes living so complicated. 

 In the interim, as we patiently wait for experts to crack the seemingly impossible code to human suffering, we’ve created clever quotes, retreats, space stations, stuff, services, and substances as coping mechanisms. These are to distract us from the harsh truths of life, compelling us, even tricking us to keep going. 

But why do we keep going very well knowing that we can only go so far?

 My two cents: It’s not by mistake, it’s by nature’s design. And any attempt to prove or disprove this is merely a quest intended to both burden and bless humanity. It is what we like to call purpose and evolution. The caveat is that we must look back to move forward. And this is where I think we might have gone astray. We’ve gone so far off, that we’ve lost sight of where we’re going and why. The worst part, we’ve become arrogant about it—we can thank technology for this. Not that it created the problem, it simply exposed it.

“It's not going to do any good to land on Mars if we're stupid.” - Ray Bradbury

 Well, Ray, we were intelligent enough to finally land on Mars. But we’re still struggling on matters of faith, race, age, gender, power, and money—NASA has nothing on these. 

I don’t believe that we’re hardwired to procreate and survive for the sake of our species—I find this to be an egocentric simplistic perspective. Rather, I believe, that LIFE transcends humanity—LIFE here being equated to all that is mysterious, ubiquitous, and omnipotent. If all people were to suddenly vanish from planet earth, the planet, along with the sun, the moon, the air, the sea, the stars, and gravity would continue to exist. We can’t know for sure. But considering humans somehow found themselves on earth already surrounded by these things, and had nothing to do with creating them, it’s safe to say that they’d do just fine without us. 

 However, my intention isn’t to dissect the miracle of life or the obscurity of death—the subject alone would suck the life right out of us. What intrigues me is just how awful humans are at doing both: living and dying. 

 As we often turn to nature to better understand ourselves, here are two of my favorite quotes that underline well the paradox of life: 

“I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt 

(Note: The use of this quote is only to reference the quote and is not intended to condone nor condemn Roosevelt in any way.)

"Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter." African proverb

 You see, nature has it as such that humans can hunt the unsuspecting and unarmed lion and can walk away with heroic sway. Humans can also hunt the early bird and later sing about how we make our own luck. 

 In nature, this is just how things are. There are prey and predators, and neither can lobby or protest to amend the laws of nature—unless of course the prey or predator is human in nature. In this case, what goes up, can actually be made to stay there. We like to think we can defy gravity. And we’re just as obsessed with trying to defy death. 

Because humans are somehow endowed with consciousness, we’re able to either use or abuse our power and privilege. The fact that we devote our life to challenging moral-bending issues, speaks to the obvious problem that plagues our species: abuse. 

 We spend a lifetime trying to right wrongs and fight to restore matters of morality, ethics, and constitution. Technology, on the other hand, has far outpaced any of the latter at lightning speed and with much laxity—wreaking havoc along the way. Tech accelerated all that is good along with all that is bad and did so all too fast.

In the last years, there’s been chatter on how tech will eventually transcend human intelligence. It feels like it already has. And not because the technology is whip-smart, but because generally, human intelligence is lagging. Digital indoctrination has revealed how fundamentally torn the fabric of life is. We’ve become experts at taking selfies yet remain hopelessly unaware of the self … and far less aware of the other.

 So here we are, still. In the words of the honorable Dalai Lama, expressing what surprised him most about humanity:

"Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Oh, dear Dalai, while I agree that this is intensely dispiriting, I suspect that it’s just as LIFE intended.

 We’re simply responding to life’s polarities as energy beckons energy. Light requires the dark, just as pleasure requires pain, and just as loss requires gain. We race toward the finish line only to then find ourselves repentant for not having taken more strolls. And although we know this, we keep circling back to where we started in droves.  

Technology is not the yardstick by which we should measure human advancement. While it geniusly demonstrates human power and mastery, it merely represents a fraction of our potential—imagine if we were to employ it more constructively.  Instead, what we do with what we create is what defines our level of enlightenment. And while it is inevitable that someone would’ve discovered fire, thought to pop the kernel, milk the cow, skin the pig, use oxygen to produce electricity,  use sex to control, fear to dominate, and use the word free as means of extortion … we need not succumb blindly to temptations and confuse commerce with Cosmos.

 “All that glitters is not gold”

 It’s no surprise that in a world where humans are viewed as capital, our life falls into the hands of the greediest bidder. 

 Knowing that we’re going to eventually die, doesn’t give us license to live indifferently, dismissively, consumed with consuming, and falsely convinced of our self-importance. 

 So, I end on this question:

 If someone (assuming this someone has a conscience) were to put a gun to your head and give you ten seconds to tell them why you deserve to live, what would you say?