Mortuary Mileux

At the end of this day, as at the end of all metaphorical days, my thoughts turn to that final irrefutable end toward which we all race frantically. It is perhaps unwise and less than helpful to think of humans as organic pain collectors racing toward a communal and inescapable oblivion, and yet somehow I and others of my mindset manage. There is, and has always been, only one way off this hideously accelerated rock we call a planet: The cooling and pooling of less than oxygen rich blood in our stilled and quietly solidifying cardiac chambers. I won't insult your intelligence any further than I need to by stating for the record that we all, every one of us, will die. Death and Taxes dear reader, are the only things we can count on. Morbid as that fact is, it's not directly my point.

Say a loved one was to die, a mother perhaps. You leave the church (having sated your particular religious need for ritual in this time of debilitating loss) and notice that the people passing on the nearby highway have taken no notice of the reason you were even in said ritual. Your mother has died, yet the world at large continues completely unscathed. That is not, by any stretch of the imagionation, to imply that it wouldn't effect you both deeply and lastingly (she was your mother), but is only intended to demostrate the fact that we, as individualized cognisent beings, are (when shadowed against the backdrop of even local affairs) totally insignificant. We die, and the world moves on.

I'd like to nip in the bud any suggestion that I may be inferring that human lives CANNOT be significant in the grand scheme of things. A PERSON can invent a device, can solve an equation, can build a formula or program a logical circuit that changes the course of history. They will be revered and lamented upon their passing by a society as a whole, as a result of having affected that structure. On the other hand PEOPLE are foolish, flighty creatures who cant be trusted to identify the sharp end of a spork and must needs be monitored during the most mundane of activities lest they create chaos and breed anarchy by the simple dint of their inability to follow simple, boldly presented directions. Any substance that happens to be lighter than water (be it poultice or poison) will rise to the top and be noticed. Hence, many influential men accomplished deeds the world at large proclaimed to be horrible and monstrous, and did so efficiently and successfully. The ability to lead does not preclude the desire to do harm. ...

To summarize: Those who desire power are the least likely to deserve it, Your lack of understanding of another's point of view does not invalidate their beliefs, Death is a force that has been with us since the dawn of consciousness and is worthy of both our respect and admiration, The fact that we don't matter to the universe at large is no reason to not attempt to accomplish something with our lives, and last but certainly not least, The most noble thing we can do in this life is to ensure that when we're lying in a casket surrounded by flowers that there will be people there arguing over who gets to take them home.