Editor's Blog Jan 11th 2012
WHEN DEATH COMES KNOCKING
People spend an inordinate amount of time, money and effort trying to avoid the Grim Reaper’s scythe, when ultimately…. “the reality is that we all must die”.
Billions of the worlds cash is spent on keeping fit, healthy eating, supplements and medical techniques that promise you immortality. Honestly what is the point? With the average life expectancy in the western world on the up because of this, in the underdeveloped parts of the world it is going down. I ask you this, who is really living? The person who has no time, or the person who believes that has all the time in the world?
If you break down life into component parts: Infancy, teen/young adult/adult and old, you will find that the longest state for a healthy human is old, and with old comes a whole set of problems. Mobility issues, chronic pain, impaired sight, unruly bowels and a wayward bladder, and these are just some of the physical issues. At some point the mind begins to suffer and, you end up leaving your house with a pair of underpants on your head, singing who wants to live forever by Queen.
It is before all these problems of age set in, that you must raise two fingers to DEATH and do everything you have wanted to, but did not have the balls because you thought it might kill you. Even as you get older and less able, continue to do what makes your heart skip a bit.
As I have become older, I have come to terms with DEATH; it is the natural progression of life. You are born, you “Live” and then you die. Depressing isn’t it?
There have been a few times in my life when I really thought I was going to die, I have never felt so alive when I didn’t. And that is why I live like I do. I refuse to cower to life’s dangers. I refuse to kneel to life’s ailments. I will refuse to wallow in self-pity or self-doubt; I will not waste a moment of this wonderful life on petty inconsequential tripe. I am too busy living.
We all have a date with DEATH, a date that we don’t even have to RSVP to. We don’t know where, when or even how it will happen, but when it does, in those final moments, will you really be able to say, “I lived”? Or was I too busy trying not to die?
Ed.
