Life, and/or death.

Death is an ending.

Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, there's no getting past it. You die. Your life ends. All of the things that you accomplish in your life will cease to  matter to you. You decompose, rot away, and eventually, as your subsequent generations also eventually die out, the tenuous influence you still held on the universe will crumble and fade away. No matter how famous you eventually became, the human race will eventually move on, and forget entirely about you.

So. If this is the case, why does anything matter?

It's a tough question to ask. The truth is, in a cosmic sense, nothing matters. Everything will end, all sentient thought will eventually cease. All signs that any of us were ever here will disappear. And humans, as a species, when we inevitably kill ourselves off, will not be missed. Not by the planet we abused and overused, not by the species' we hunted to the brink of extinction. Not by anyone.

Like I said. It's a tough question to ask. It's an even harder answer to hear.

So, what's the point of living, if we will eventually die? 

Well, the key to understanding this is to not worry about the cosmic sense of things. 

That's it.  Simply not care. Yes, you will die. Yes, it will probably hurt. No, no one will miss you. So.

Now that that's out of the way, go live your life. You are free, completely and totally. Free in the knowledge that, no matter what you do while you live, you will be eventually freed of the burdens of care, of memory, of guilt and hate. Now, that being said, don't live solely for today. People who live only for today  always end up quickly shortening the amount of 'todays' that they will have. 

Rather, live for your life. Live to have the memories, to have the experiences. Live to live, fully and completely, with no fear of what people think. Live enough that, should you be lucky enough to have time to contemplate on your life before you die, that you feel full. You think to yourself "It was a good life. Not the fullest. Not the most important or complete, by any means. But it was my life. And that's enough."

My dreams, they turn against me.

I walk alone. In constant fear. The dust from the road bites into my eyes, and i cast a nervous glance over my shoulder. Still nothing. Just like the last ten miles. I continue walking, clutching tighter to my heavy, rusted .45 pistol. Dilapidated buildings line this broken, wasted road. Skyscrapers, from every city in the world I wanted to live in and never did. Once, their broken, twisted faces may have haunted me. But I have lived in this hell for far too long. Now, I simply see their hollow, staring eyes as threats, places my dreams might pick for an ambush.

There is no night, no day here. I reach into one of my pockets for the rusty watch I have been using to keep time, and the ruined suit I'm wearing pulls against the wound on my shoulder, causing me to hiss out loud. I quickly clap a hand over my mouth. My involuntary noise of pain broke the still wasteland air, and someone or something may have heard it. 

Quickly, I rush to the side of the road, taking cover behind a collapsed cement pillar. I listen and wait, not breathing, not moving. I hear something, faintly, in the distance. It sounds like... an engine? In this place?

I peek my head out from cover. I wait for my eyes to focus through the windblown dust. And then a slow, paralyzing fear spreads through my limbs. It is one of my oldest dreams, finally here to repay my betrayal. Art. The most powerful of my dreams. With me since childhood, a dear friend to me, with whom I could have shaped the world. I sold him out for money, just to get by, to make rent. Look what it's come to.

He is driving toward me in a beat up, broke down '73 Mustang convertible. It might once have been cherry red, but it's color, like everything else here, is faded. All thoughts about the color of the car evaporate when I see Art himself. He is dressed, head to toe, in rusted pieces of scrap metal, fashioned into makeshift armor. He is driving quickly, heedless of the missing door on the driver's side of the car. 

Suddenly he slams on the brakes, and I duck down, wishing that I had not stared so long.

Now he has seen me.

I pull the magazine out of my pistol: four shots left. I curse silently, wishing Music had had more ammunition on him when he and I fought. I cross my fingers in the mad hope that Art won't have found anything more than a rusty pipe or a piece of a stop sign to fight me with. With both that car and the armor he's wearing, I doubt it. 

The unmistakeable CHAK-CHAK of a shotgun confirms my fears.

This is my life now. Trapped in this purgatory, no hope for rescue or escape. My only option is to keep fighting, and keep walking, hoping that someday my dreams will let go of their bitter hurt and forgive me, and we can start anew. 

I am doubtful that this will ever happen. I don't forgive myself, why should they?

The only escape is death. And death is no escape. I've tried that, believe me. I only end up back at the start, to face all my dreams again, to walk down this endless road once more.

Will it ever end?

I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about you like guitars think about the ghosts of the last notes they played. Like books think about words, and words think about letters, and letters think about postage stamps. I'm thinking about you like narcissists think about themselves, like people with multiple personality disorder think about themselves, and themselves, and themselves. Like boys think about girls, and girls think about shoes.

I'm thinking about you like blind people think about color. 

Like planets think about suns.

I'm thinking about you like doctors think about cancer, and smokers think about anything but.

Like soldiers think about death, and soon-to-be mothers think about life. Like violinists think about strings, and toddlers think about swings, and fiances think about rings. 

Like philosophers think about why we're here, 

Like travelers think about why we're not out there.

For the observant ones:

I changed the blog title. If you know what it's from, well... you don't win anything. I'm broke as a joke, and all I can afford to give you are words. But you're the coolest person I know. 

If you don't know what it's from, google it.

Love is...

• Love is a punch to the throat
• Love is a ninja (it'll sneak up on ya)
• Love is diplomacy
• Love is penicillin (it's discovery is accidental)
• Love is winning a competition you never entered
• Love is thievery
• Love is lighting yourself on fire
• Love is your favorite cartoon
• Love is a blank page, and a fistful of crayons