I Am Not Dead Yet; I will Do This Instead

We are so fixated on dying, the fear of it, that our lives slip away. Maybe you're tired and decide not to go to the new writing group on campus, bail on the coffee date with a co-worker, don't call your grandparents back after your birthday. Things become more effort, and you are so unable to rest.

Humanity's ending would, and most likely will be, tragic. I ache at all the lost art, the desperate energy of creating something beautiful, and being brave enough to share it with the world. But I do not think I would fight to save our human race for its own sake.

Humans can think about thinking; we parse our minds into categories, standards, stipulations, possibilities; other creatures don't do that. I value us for our ability to speak about sunshine, the sweetness of fresh fruit, the gentle softness of a snowy evening when the moon is full and haloed in light.

And yet, I want to see us fighting for the world in its entirety. We as people who contemplate morality, the future, hopes, dreams, and regrets owe it to the other miraculous things on Earth to save them too.

Once, I laid in bed, head pounding, heart tight, pills heavy in my hand. I did not die, but I wanted to. I did not love myself enough to stay. I did not care that I would be gone. I knew others would miss me, but i hated myself more.

It's been almost three years since then, and today I am awake instead of paralyzed by all the thoughts in my head. I am writing, and I am thinking. The world is still going to be beautiful if humans are no longer around to see it.

Allusion, metaphor, retrospect would be gone yes, but the sunlight, the fruit, the snow, and the moon would all still be here. Some could argue that they would be better off if we were gone since we have been so rough with our home.

Isolation does no one any good. Hiding from your fears give them power over you. The thought that confiding in someone is weak is wrong. We are stronger together, the world needs us to do better.

I know logically one day I will die; I do not know what happens after that. I choose to let that fear go; I can spend my energy somewhere else. I can't stop death, but i can do my best to make this world kinder than I found it.