When the warm days fade into the dusk of night, there is no darker place than the inner-most sanctum of the human mind. We recede into this quiet solitude, reflect, refine, evolve, once we process the moments in our lives that have impacted us. As we grow, our journey is sometimes without order, a chaotic barrage of irrationality, yet -- at times -- it is a sequence of carefully planned moments considered safe by normal standards.
It's these dark nights where I find myself contemplating the most consistent of human experiences: death.
Having learned of the passing of a handful of friends and their family members the past few weeks, I find myself struggling to wipe the away the idea of what death brings. Now, I'm not talking specifically about the afterlife, but instead the process of expiring. The brain waves, the thoughts, the emotions, the confusion and the finality of it all. I'm by no means looking forward to learning the truth of these things any time soon, but it weighs on me heavily.
Whether I am speaking to friends with faith in God or friends whose only faith is in their non-belief, the constant chatter keeps me up at night, staring into the spinning blades of our ceiling fan as my mind whirls in thought. Whatever comes next, after we expire on this world, whatever adventure that awaits us beyond this realm, this reality, has me struggling with the speed at which time seems to move as we grow older. I see faces, once youthful, eyes once bright, and -- in their place -- aged caricatures of someone I once knew.
For the first time in my life, I feel old. I see time shedding its skin more frequently now. For someone with a massive Peter Pan complex, these are tough pills to swallow for so many reasons. The youthful vibrance that fills my heart is sometimes muffled by the limitations of age, both physical and societal. What was once so commonplace is now a fleeting twinkle, a brief moment, followed by constant shifting time as I age all the while. No more hide-and-seek, no more recklessness, no more youth...
But I refuse to buy into this. This life is such a gift, why spend it coiled in fear or worrying about the perception of the collective? To truly live is to throw the chains of limitations from one's shoulders in an attempt to capture every single moment this life has to offer. We get one shot at this, and we shouldn't spend these fleeting hours living in a confined space or with an anchor tied to our feet. We must strike out, do the impossible, live the dream, step outside the rat race we have been conditioned for so long to maneuver through. Forget the cheese, it's merely a distraction.
Jump out of an airplane. Hike the Pacific Crest Trail for three months. Play "Airline Roulette" and let fate take you somewhere out of the ordinary. Steer away from the conformity of society. Live deeply, madly, and love just as carelessly. Challenge the system, stare down a roaring lion, dance aimlessly with a beautiful stranger, live a life far from average. Get off the treadmill of expectation, and -- instead -- push the limits of what life has to offer. Never settled for anything less. Take chances and leave no regret behind.
They say you experience three deaths when you expire: when the body ceases to function, the second death is when you're put in the grave and the third death is when your name is spoken for the final time. What kind of legacy do we leave behind if we fail to strike out and taste everything this world has to offer?
Life needs no cheese. It simply needs oxygen and a youthful heart...seek it. With every breath.
