i'd like to be buried alive.

[jratlee]

for the obvious reasons, "life after death" fascinates me and scares me immensely at the same time. not that bullshit heaven and hell/spiritual crap. i want to know what it feels like when my body is under 6 feet of dirt in a box that cost my children several thousand dollars. i honestly think that is where everything ends. that after death, my body will be buried...eventually decomposing to create simple fossil fuel for a later generation of earth's inhabitants. all human after-life ideals were created as a mean to the ends of our also man-made religions and doctrines. what if there is absolutely nothing spiritual about this existence? that, in fact, we have no soul. who we are is just another form of how we communicate within our species in order to survive. we are animals. everything we think exists existentially is in fact, just another basic chemical reaction. "eternity" doesn't make sense. i can't imagine my soul having any fun sitting in a cloud forever. this is it. everything we do right now is some pinnacle of our existence. nothing greater can or will be achieved by our self after our last breath. all speculation, of course. however, most truth is proven speculation. for some reason i think all of this is more comforting than some everlasting, immaculate journey through space & time. what fun is that when your body is under ground and the only people you really cared about surround a hole in the ground and their tears make raindrops on said wooden box? i can't open the box, climb out of the hole, and wipe their tears. my shape-less blob of a soul is stuck in a fucking cloud. unable to make any sort of measurable contact with my former peers. i suppose all the ideals of heaven and hell, spirituality, existence, etc. were created because they simply don't exist. they were created to convince us that our lives mean something after we die. who cares if your life means something after you die? you're dead. you're lives mean everything right now. while you're still alive. while others and yourself can measure the pleasure and pain of this journey by each wrinkle on our faces.

in relation; let me go of your expectations, dreams, aspirations, plans, desires. none of you will ever know how happy i am right now or how happy i will be. you've got me figured out wrong. i probably have you figured out wrong, but that's not the point. before my last breath, before the decomposition starts; i want to know that while my lungs were working, my heart and mind were alive with a love and a fever like no other. that my dreams were just things i thought i wanted because i was able to have everything and anything i wanted. sure, i want to make the people who love me proud that they know me, that they had a part in my glorious, glorious life. although, i can't mistake living for them as living. i must live for myself and they must be proud of that. they must know that i am grateful for contributions and vice versa. i have to stop worrying about letting other people down or being a failure in their eyes or seemingly wasting their gifts. i have wasted nothing in this life. just as no one has wasted any of my gifts. it's not possible to waste. energy in every shape, way, or form gets used in this lifetime somehow. sometimes it can be measured, sometimes it can't. everything is going to be alright though. whatever i decide to do with my life will be because the people in my life believe in me.

with this said, can i start living?