9 in the morning, first thing my eyes had depicted was the presence of a blurry, yet, bewitching tawny Butterfly.

“It’s not brown, it’s tawny!,” was the first argument I had with John, I think you still remember John.

As I contemplated the woozy movements of this small creature, the picture became clearer; along with the realization that I have more important things to do.

“What’s the time?,” I hastily jumped out of my place.

“ you’re late...is the time,” John said in a soliloquy.

11:14, still late. In the jurisdiction i was. It was an old building, the walls were like the people they had sheltered, pale enough not to exist.

I was still contemplating, I always do, but this time, it was you! Your skittish movements, your flushed appearance. Your apparent nervousness.

Just like a chess opening, you waving at me was an expected move. By breaking John’s word, I marched towards your seat. It was you, No one else. In this masquerade you were a person with no disguise.

John glances at my watch, he realizes that I’m late. I glance at you “No, I’m on time,” I say in a soliloquy.

Death is an end to the dichotomy of a meaningful,humdrum existence.

It has a scent of a crumbled Broadway stage.

A stage that carried Othello along with his jealousy, hamlet and his vengeance, Antigone and her determination, Prometheus with his free will, Not to mention, Nina ( Black swan) and her paranoia.

A scent of an abandoned cabin, That carries the smell of some superfluous memories and the moisture inside the the house’s Oak wood.

The grim reaper along with his dim gray outfit, comes as the pesky tick-tock that we all consciously set but never predict.

Death does have a message.

“ don’t avoid me, I’m the only inevitable fact

I’m your salvation.”

For every word I wrote to you, here’s the one you needed the most “ sorry” .

An apology has always been a pride crusher for a man boasting on his heavy thrown, reason why his feelings never reflected remorse or sympathy.

Such a heavy crown my pride had to wear. such a miserable, deceptive life it ended up leading. For that Words weight more than gold, I selected rusty ones for you. Yes I lied, yes my love was a gilded metal, but you blindly traded it with everything you owned. A ruthless king I was. I served you poison in a silver glass, yet, you called it pleasure even when you knew the pain would last.

tales told no king bow down

The king would never frown.

But as you vanished from the crowd, the king has lost his golden crown

In his letters to you and to his heart, “Sorry” is all He had written down.

Sometimes I get tired of life

but life never gets tired of me.

I throw my hands up and

demand, “That’s enough,”

no more messing with me.

Life simply takes that as a challenge

to step up its game.

Just picks me up in one delicate grasp

of thumb and forefinger,

tosses me high,

and it’s back through the wringer again.

What can I say?

All this grasping, clawing,

fighting, resisting,

just proves that I am

still alive

and kicking.

That’s something to be grateful for.

My sense of justice,

of indomitable resistance,

that won’t quite be snuffed out,

proves to my world-weary self that

something inside of me

still craves the sweet tang of vitality,

savors the pulse of beating, breathing aliveness,

won’t go quietly into the dark.

My wasted mind recognizes

the fleeting wisps of fizzy fight

mingled with

the flat dregs of failure

and strains out every last drop

into an elixir of survival.

My innate humanity fights for survival,

and that’s something to be grateful for.

Because that need to survive won’t be satisfied

until I’ve risen from the depths,

remade into something new and bold.

I won’t just survive.

I’m made to thrive.

I surrender and let go of control, instead…

sat down, and

watching the evening orange sun-gold

slowly unravel its ineffable magic upon the

ebbs and flows of ocean flowers.

First withered autumn leave falls, while

soft red strawberries are still blossoming.

Pacing down some self perfectionism meddling works,

until everything about the self start taking on

a soft rosy cozy glow,

Every stubborn edge of my character and

harsh self criticism are all churning into

some smooth humming of

a sweet nightie-night

prayers to the heart…

And all the binary inner speech or bipartisan emotional games within the head

can finally shake hands...

Children of the earth—

we are so deeply loved and greatly cherished by

the divine creator.

The Coming of the Ship:

And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

Speak to us of Love:

When Love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so he is for your pruning.

Even as he has sins to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he to send to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you on to himself. He thrashes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He needs you until you are pliant; And then he assigned you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secret of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

You are an eagle and upon your wings we fly.

Sailing over the open water, mist from the sea kisses my skin.

Gliding through the canyons flight steady and strong.

Soaring over mountain tops, we watch the rising sun.

Fearlessly taking me higher, leading us to sights yet unseen.

Upon your wings I fly with you, as we embark on a new beginning.

Well, to look at purpose, one must first understand the denefition of purpose. According to the dictionary, purpose is “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.” Well, if that is the case, then it should be fairly easy to discern what our purpose is, or will it? No, the question is of the purpose of what, us? Is it a question of us as writers, us as biological humans, or us as philosophers? To answer this question, allow me to break it down into little segments.

Firstly, we are biologically humans, and thus, according to instinct, our purpose is to eat, breathe, sleep, drink, reproduce, exercise, and repeat. This is, of course, according to the laws of biology. The only goal in life, according to these laws, is to avoid harm and stay alive until we die. Utilitarianism in its most vulgar form. But everything has its own laws. This may be the answer for biology, for instance, but it could never be the case for philosophy. To make this easier, and to narrow it down, I shall address the three segments of our little definition of purpose.

The previous paragraph does justice for the first part. It answers the question: “why is something done?” We can pursue goals that are not in correlation with the laws of basic survival as long as we maintain that survival. For instance, as long as we eat and drink and sleep regularly, we can perhaps learn to paint, or to drive, or go on an expedition somewhere, and so forth. So in the context of humans, things are done because we prioritize: we do what we need to survive first, and then work out from there. When building a civilization, one would first need a water source, then a food source, then a central structure, then a city, then a military, and on and on and on. The bigger they get, the more they need. Similarly, each individual human, as they grow, will require different things, but the basic essence of survival still lingers. We are done, so to speak, by surviving, and we may pursue other goals from there.

Now for the second part of the definition. Allow me to elaborate on the question: “why is something created?” Specifically, why are we created? Simply put, we evolved. Over millions and millions of years, life forms adapted and changed in accordance with their environment in ways that best suited their survival, and now we have reached the shape and mentality of the common Homosapien. We are probably not done evolving, but as of now, we are as we are. So, because evolution follows the trend that a species evolves in whatever manner benefits survival, that must be the reason for which we were created, survival (anyone else seeing a pattern here?).

But something came before the first life forms roamed the Earth, and those are the elements. All elements are made up of atoms, and all atoms contain electrons. All elements react according to their electron count. All elements become stable when they reach pairs of electrons that add up to eight, and that is why anything reacts at all. We are made up of elements, and we are made up of atoms, and thus, we are made up of electrons. From a scientific perspective, life is nothing more than a tool that electrons use to become stable. As we eat, chemical reactions take place, and so forth. If we died, these reactions could not take place and stability would be that much further from reach for these elements, so thus, it is suitable for the elements that we strive to stay alive. Once again, we come back to survival as our main purpose.

But now we have the last part of the definition of purpose, that of existence. Why does anything exist? But, more importantly, why do we exist? Now, I have explained the natural and scientific reasons for our existence, but what about the philosophical? This is where things become very interesting. As we have seen before, there is no purpose to live other than to simply survive, as almost all other animals do without a second thought. But humans, humans are curious. We pursue things that may not necessarily benefit strictly survival. We have desires, pleasures, and longings that are not required by nearly all other life forms. So why, for what reason, do we exist?

Now things become controversial, because, simply speaking, everyone has their own reason or purpose, in their own eyes. In this case, purpose must mean the meaning of life. There is no single purpose of life that all life forms must adhere to in the philosophical sense (except, of course, simple survival). To believe that life has only one meaning or purpose is, in my opinion, foolish. Everybody alive has different values and no one can dictate what those values should be. I, for example, have mixed views of religion. But what right do I have to judge religion if I am not religious, and what right has a religious person to force their religion upon anyone else? No one has the right to make assertions for others. So, in a simple sense, there is no wider meaning of life, as far as can be discerned. Everyone has their own little meanings.

The way I see it, life has no meaning. All empires fall, all will at some point die and return to dust, everybody will eventually be forgotten, all legacies at some point die, and so on and so forth. For some reason, most people seem to believe that a life without meaning is not one worth living. I say, “who cares?” I feel freer without any purpose to adhere to. I follow my desires, and I try not to hurt others along the way, but ultimately, I couldn’t care less what I or anybody else does with their life. My life is my own, and their lives are their own. But that is only in the grander scheme of life. Objectively, life, according to my nihilistic beliefs, has no meaning, but what about relative to society?

We are still speaking philosophically, of course (so the answer of basic survival is already acknowledged). Relative to society, there are a series of little purposes which we may follow that, though they may not mean anything in the grand sense, do carry a little weight in the small moments in which we live them. Every day I peruse little purposes. I got out of bed this morning, for instance. My next purpose was to brush my teeth, and then wash my face, and then comb my hair, and then eat breakfast…My purpose now is to write an essay that tries to answers the question, “what is our purpose?” There are many that we will pursue throughout our lives. Some are small, and some are larger. Regardless, if you, the reader, believes that any of these purposes mean anything objectively or not, you must admit that one will pursue a lot of purposes over the course of your life. And frankly, that is one of the reasons that life is so interesting.

And lastly, anyone could be right, and anyone could be wrong. I am no exception. I think I am right, but that is because I am me. I could just as easily be wrong about anything. So, in the grand scheme of things, I would just like to say that, no matter what my purpose really is, I am glad to be alive right now. I am glad to have all of you to accompany me on my journey through life. And, as always, may the eyes of fortune forever gaze in your direction. Fare ye well, and cheerio!

#opinion

#philosophy

Whoever said

“Sticks and stones

may break my bones,

but words will never hurt me”

did not know the power of

a well-timed verbal barb.

Many a sting I’ve endured

from sharp sticks and rocks alike.

But never did the pain

pierce so deep

or linger so long

as a vitriolic word.

What is not commonly known

about the nature of the spoken word

is that words hold a tangible substance,

solid as any physical thorn.

Once released into the atmosphere,

words may impart a gift of hurt

in a single cutting remark,

unable to be retracted,

lasting as a wounded heart.

If only we all took some time

to consider the indelible mark

left behind by the words we speak.

Maybe we would wait a moment

before expressing our thoughts,

or simply let a few nasty syllables

fall unspoken by the wayside.