sure as unsure

after these days of the dead are passed yet again, i find it appropriate to reflect upon the immanence of death as well as the immanence of our being alive.

i wonder
what does it mean to be alive, and by knowing this, have we a better idea of death?

or by knowing life, have we removed ourselves even more strongly from non-life.

the play "i feel fine" tonight was, i thought, a clear rendition of the impending chaos with which we are being pushed toward the end. our minds, a collection of physical circumstance, learned behaviors, feelings, beliefs and emotion, collide in smaller and smaller rotations until we are finally electrocuted into the unknown. we can try to organize our selves into tiny grids - finely tuned philosophies, religions - our minds folded up like tiny oragami birds

with crisp edges, crisp as a sunny winter day

and yet we face death with a wildness, a fear, a confidence - terror, wild movement and shrill sounds,

thud

and loud! and sweat and dancing, wild dancing, skin!

this thursday, a young girl left dangling with death, killed at random by a high speed collision on the freeway. her bones like glass smashed on the sidewalk, my screen showing her passing of life

friday, my friend's father finding out he has moments left until his heart gives way, two heart attacks passed and the final impending.

the randomness and non-randomness of death. the ability to cause it, and the non-ability to prevent it; the opportunity to see it; and the ultimate opportunity to be: death.

is it this end that makes life so exciting? is it this gambling game that adds truth or dare to our every move? are we ever truly compassionate to those who are standing in front of this door, or like the play, are we clinging to our own life by throwing a pointing finger at the one for whom the bell tolls?

if life did go on forever, would we find any reason to live it?

and yet how much of my life is spent trying to preserve moments, feelings, objects, and youth

how much i convince myself that this color is real, and that my happiness and sadness is so very real, and this loneliness and isolation is for the best in the long run, for it is better than giving in to false closeness and cheap thrills

but is the present only justified by the existence of future? are we framed by the anxiety of being, are we sunk by the weight of our own responsibility to live our lives and make choices? does the reality of freedom, the non-existence of meaning broil us alive, provoke a panic so deep we cannot bear weight under it?

and yet there is something ultimately thrilling about the finality of the moment, about the infinity of the impossibility of retracting choices made. there is something so thrilling, so immediate, so real about these breaths and movements that our limbs make in space.



we are frozen yet immortilized, we are panicked yet invigorated by our own existence.


it is this tension between ultimate fear and ultimate ecstasy,

it is this tension that defines my life and presses my blood against my brain in thought.

-- maybe death must not necessarily be polar to life, but merely an extension of this crucial tension

?