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It seems that my last post was misinterpreted as the last cry of a tortured soul. So just to clear any incorrect assumptions: No, I do not want to kill myself.
What the poem was about in actual fact was the war in Iraq, but more than that, the plight of any man who leaves his family behind to put himself in the line of fire. I imagine him stepping out of his door, wondering when he will return, hoping that some stray bullet or misfortune won’t prevent this happening. I imagine all those times he just wanted to be in front of that door again, the smells of cooking and fresh linen rushing to greet him. And yet there they are on the battlefield, on a rig, sailing the seas, fate waiting at the ready to take their lives.
That people would take my poetry the wrong way, it’s comforting to know that my safety net is there. It’s also a reminder just how out of touch everyone is with me. The last thing I’d do is kill myself. I always used to ponder this subject in high school. I could never fathom why someone would take their life. It seems to me that wherever you are, there’s always something you can do before you die. For starters, go skydiving. If that doesn’t put you in touch with life, then try shaving your head and going to live in a Buddhist temple. Why not? And if you seriously must kill yourself, then why not do it creatively? Go for a swim in the ocean with slabs of bloody meat strapped to your body. A plane ticket to Africa only costs a couple of thousand dollars, any credit card will give you that. Go live with some apes like Dianne Fossey or some Grizzly Bears in Canada. What’s the worst that can happen?
No, if I’m bothered by anything it’s that we die too soon. Life seems to travel so fast, days fly by then weeks and years. In a way I’m searching for that timelessness of childhood. Back in the time when you wanted to be older so bad that days, weeks, months and years passed so slowly. Now that I’m old, just the opposite kind of time dilation is happening. Like the song, I just want this train to stop.
When you’re young you feel eternal, as though life will never stop. From this feeling comes the idea that you can be anything and everything to everyone. Then the realization comes that everyone passes and soon it will be your turn. You just have to resolve your mortality with the desire to do everything and achieve only that which is achievable in a human life. It’s that point of change which gets people down. Why do we suddenly see getting older as a bad thing? We can’t help getting older and we do it every single moment. So why not celebrate it. Can you remember the time when you were 17, a week before your 18th birthday. How you just wanted it to pass. Imagine that for your next birthday, finally being 30, 40 or 95. And why not?
So as this year ends and we all start our ritualistic grumbling of “well there’s another year”, stop yourself right there. 2007 is almost here. A new year, a new page of history, a new tableau on which to paint the colors of our lives. We’re older, wiser and living the lives we chose all those years before. We know that it’s never to late to change anything, that everything is possible. And that, concerned family and friends is my simple philosophy. E is P.
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