One Way Out

Life is a curious adventure. For me, it is made even more exciting by the lack of adventure that will follow it. As you all know, I believe that once this life is over, there is nothing else. There is no after life, no second chance, nor any reincarnation as an African Warrior Ant. This is it, from beginning to end, this is it.

A lot of people ask me how I can live like that, believing that this is all we get. To me, it's not a matter of planning for the future, or hoping that something will continue on just to avoid the nothing that is inevitably before me. It is simply a matter of truth.

We go through this life making decisions that effect not only ourselves, but countless hundreds of others also. We may not realize we are doing it at the time, but every single action has a consequence. The simple act of purchasing a chicken from the grocery store means that there is one less chicken in the world for someone else. That single purchase may have influenced the market so that more chickens were sold to stores rather than sold/given to charities to feed the starving. In that sense, your purchase shifted food away from the starving and fed your already healthy body inevitably killing a starving man, woman, or child elsewhere in the world.

We cannot function focusing only on consequence. We must live to provide the best possible lives for ourselves, and those we know and love. It is impossible to think for everyone, or hurt no one. Everything will cause someone pain or grief, and give someone else joy and hope.

The truth of the matter is this: Life is here, and no matter what you believe will happen once it is over, there is one thing you can be certain about. You can fight against hurting people, you can fight to achieve your every goal, and you can even fight to survive. But no matter how hard you try, in the end, life its self is the one fight that you will never come out of alive.