Wise Words? Life and Death

Life is what's already happening. We all come into the world without planning on it, without being specifically picked to exist and into a certain set of conditions which we did nothing to earn or deserve. 

From this beginning, whatever it may be, we are all encouraged to live. At least for a while

Life is not a singular event. It is an action that begins at birth and must be continued each day by each person who chooses to live. We come into the world because two people (sometimes more) came to a decision (or didn't) to bring another person into the world. Life creates life.

Some chose not to live, often in the literal suicidal sense but even more frequently in the more subtle and more depressing manner of half hearted eternal resignation.

Death is what happens when we stop living. Sometimes by choice, often not so much. We spend a lot of time morning the loss of those who did not choose to die, but sometimes not enough time is spent morning the loss of those who lose the will to live. After all, an animal can be hit by a car or die of starvation or old age just as well as a human. Such death is chaotic and meaningless and unpredictable and all of these things hurt, but its ultimately as unavoidable as life itself.

Life is fragile, and death quite certain

Humanity is the only species I have observed lose the will to live. Unless we count the episode of Tom and Jerry where they both get their hearts broken and step out onto the train tracks. Obviously this is a human invention too, but lets expand on that specific decision. Stepping out in font of a train.

I once heard a story of an old railroad conductor. Like a lot of people who spend their lives in a niche profession ignored by a lot of the more generalized society, he loved his job. After all there are some who love trains as much as others love shoes, and frankly I don't understand either one, but I also don't judge. When asked why the man had eventually retired, he answered simply and honestly, betraying the horrid nature of the story. He said

I just couldn't kill any more people. People would walk out onto my tracks every few months, and by the time I saw them it was far too late to stop the train. Trains can take a mile to come to a dead stop. The death normally happens before the stop

I heard this story and thought that stepping in front of a train would be a good idea to stick in my back pocket. After all, I could see the logic behind it. It would be quick, effortless, and free. 

Though death is the literal vehicle of death in this little story, for the one stepping in front of that one giant headlight, its easy to see a lot of resemblance between their unwanted life and their chosen killer. Both are vehicles which someone at some point started which are now hurtling from some unknown origin to some unknown destination. And importantly, in both cases it seems death is the more likely outcome than gaining control.

So what do we do when we lose control of the train of life? 

The answer, I believe, is to realize that life is not a train at all.

Trains traverse on tracks. They are only capable of starting and stopping at predetermined destinations. Even though its easy to see ourselves in the train, our human world is far more chaotic than a series of tracks waiting to be traversed. No matter how many tracks of expectation and judgment are laid down in front of us at our starting line, the wonderful thing about being human is that we can jump off the track at any time, turn any which way we want, and start heading in a new direction. We may not be able to teleport to our destinations, but we can certainly choose our own road. One where we don't want to run ourselves over. 

So I guess to wrap this first column up with a bow, if you like me have found yourself choosing death in the face of life, try to understand that there are far more choices in life than just staying on the tracks and waiting for the train to hit us.