Notte Stellata
For some reason, I have been thinking about mortality a lot lately. Why? I mean, I've thought about it before, but I think, I'm coming to terms with it. This sounds so morbid, like I'm coming to terms with my own death or something, but, to be honest, that's exactly what I mean, just not in a depressed, sorrowful kind of way. It's more calm for me. I'm beginning to realize that my short life will end one day. It's funny, but I actually think about what will the last song I ever hear be or what will I be looking at with my last glimpse. Thinking about it has made me realize there's not enough time. Not enough time.
I'm wasting time working at this meaningless job where my only escape is my daydreams and hopes for the future. I know I'm just complaining, which is so incredibly selfish when I'm lucky enough to have a job. I'm just impatient is all. I know this is temporary, I just forget sometimes. Anyway, I see customers come in, couples, and it puts death in a different perspective. Some of these people don't even look at each other. I remember one couple, each was reading a newspaper while eating. What's the point? Spending your short lives with someone you can't even converse with during dinner, how ridiculous, no, how pointless. And then there's the ones that have been married for decades and have never left their honeymoon. They are the ones I love. I have seen couples that have a bond so strong, and I can see it just by the way they look at each other. It gives me hope. I believe in soul mates, I really do. And I have no doubt that I will spend my life with mine, and we will conquer the world. Our love will inspire others. And together, after we have spent every moment unwasted (not a real world, I know, I know), we will die together. How gloriously laughable, but no one on this earth will convince me otherwise. This will happen for me.
There is something that saddens me at the thought of death, and that is wondering if I appreciate everything enough. My family, friends, music I've heard, art I see, every starry night, will I appreciate it all enough? How is that measured? I just want to take nothing for granted during this short life. I see co-workers, who have never known anything but this job and Rabun County, and I think, that could be me. So easily. Will it? No. I won't allow it. I will have a fulfilled life, or try to, to the best of my ability.
I visited a graveyard that is near my house, walking down the rows, reading the tombstones. Some of these people lived all the way back in the late 1800s. No one knows them anymore. There was a headstone that read "Gone but not forgotten," but, yes, they, whoever they are, are forgotten. Another aspect of death that I have trouble with. Being forgotten. You think the world can't survive without you, but people keep living, life continues for billions, without you. Do I want a legacy? Do I just want to be remembered fondly? This is something I wrestle with. Of course I would love to be remembered for countless generations. But this is something that, I think, is beyond my grasp. So, maybe being remembered fondly by those who mattered most to me should be enough, right? I think so.
I'm not scared of death. I'm scared of the unlived life that I could have. That scares me above all.
At the end of Eat Pray Love, the main character, Liz, says something that I relate to so deeply. Just reading it moves me:
"I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" - a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself....then truth will not be withheld from you." Or so I've come to believe."
I'm wasting time working at this meaningless job where my only escape is my daydreams and hopes for the future. I know I'm just complaining, which is so incredibly selfish when I'm lucky enough to have a job. I'm just impatient is all. I know this is temporary, I just forget sometimes. Anyway, I see customers come in, couples, and it puts death in a different perspective. Some of these people don't even look at each other. I remember one couple, each was reading a newspaper while eating. What's the point? Spending your short lives with someone you can't even converse with during dinner, how ridiculous, no, how pointless. And then there's the ones that have been married for decades and have never left their honeymoon. They are the ones I love. I have seen couples that have a bond so strong, and I can see it just by the way they look at each other. It gives me hope. I believe in soul mates, I really do. And I have no doubt that I will spend my life with mine, and we will conquer the world. Our love will inspire others. And together, after we have spent every moment unwasted (not a real world, I know, I know), we will die together. How gloriously laughable, but no one on this earth will convince me otherwise. This will happen for me.
There is something that saddens me at the thought of death, and that is wondering if I appreciate everything enough. My family, friends, music I've heard, art I see, every starry night, will I appreciate it all enough? How is that measured? I just want to take nothing for granted during this short life. I see co-workers, who have never known anything but this job and Rabun County, and I think, that could be me. So easily. Will it? No. I won't allow it. I will have a fulfilled life, or try to, to the best of my ability.
I visited a graveyard that is near my house, walking down the rows, reading the tombstones. Some of these people lived all the way back in the late 1800s. No one knows them anymore. There was a headstone that read "Gone but not forgotten," but, yes, they, whoever they are, are forgotten. Another aspect of death that I have trouble with. Being forgotten. You think the world can't survive without you, but people keep living, life continues for billions, without you. Do I want a legacy? Do I just want to be remembered fondly? This is something I wrestle with. Of course I would love to be remembered for countless generations. But this is something that, I think, is beyond my grasp. So, maybe being remembered fondly by those who mattered most to me should be enough, right? I think so.
I'm not scared of death. I'm scared of the unlived life that I could have. That scares me above all.
At the end of Eat Pray Love, the main character, Liz, says something that I relate to so deeply. Just reading it moves me:
"I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" - a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself....then truth will not be withheld from you." Or so I've come to believe."