Work Text:
What draws one to live?
What is the meaning of the treacherous path-
the cycle of emotions
That we walk through, day by day?
What ends the freefall of life?
What liberates us from that cycle?
And what suspends life?
Why must we stop and pause?
It’s simple.
Standing in the way of danger for another,
Reaching heights never seen before.
Dancing with hands entwined around the warm, flickering hearth.
We live to treasure our found meaning,
because it may slip from our grasp.
In the terrible world we were forced into,
We live to find something
then protect it with our life
then work harder for
then treasure its safe embrace –
Before it all crumbles to dust.
What motivates life
Is loss.
Death, like loss, is a product of time,
Something we will all eventually face.
Time is a force, like gravity, pushing down on us all.
Sooner or later, we will meet the ground.
That crash is death.
Perhaps the wind may take pity on this falling shell
And grant me a softer landing.
Or perhaps I might encounter another object,
falling in time with me,
That I can use to slow my descent.
That ‘object’ is meaning.
And if you cannot find meaning?
If your meaning is gone?
That is why life “slumbers”.
The pain of loss is so great we must go dormant-
that is grief. That is loss.
But even so, it remains part of the cycle.
Find meaning.
Protect.
Strive.
Embrace safety-
only to lose it.
Grieve.
And before you are ready, continue.
For time waits for no one.
So, if you embark on this journey already knowing
Its hardships,
Its pain
And its final outcome-
Knowing that everything you will do is predetermined,
Part of a cycle-
I ask you this:
Would you still choose to embark on this journey?
Those who choose yes, let me tell you why.
For,
The positive emotions we feel along these cycles draw us to live.
No matter how many scars it leaves on our once unblemished skin.
It is the emotions of the cycle that make it worth living through.
~~ fin