We’re all here. I’m used to Pink Floyd. The Rolling Stones. I realize they’re outplayed and heard a million times. That’s part of their charm. The songs of Earth. 

We live here happily on a troubled, bealeagured planet. An island whirring through space about stars. We take everything, especially death, very seriously, even though we don’t know whether death is better or worse. We don’t know anything about anywhere else but here. I don’t know why we’re here, who put us here if anyone or anything at all. I don’t know what makes us be. What our material structure is made of or energized by. And this is nothing new, but none of this mystery stops us. And that seems to be part of the principle behind life. That the unknown is motivating, not demotivating.

I’m amazed by the intricate systems we humanity create. I imagine I’m a traveler to a floating island. A planet I’m visiting. I have the privilege of peeking in, and participating in this mysterious activity of earth. When I imagine this it’s from the perspective of the brevity of my life. I see myself and everything around me as my recent creation as a being and my inevitable, approaching demise. I’m growing. Such a short time to take this all in! What a strange sad wonder this is.

The intricacy of our banking systems, our economy’s divisions of labor. The anatomical and medical knowledge. Our laws, morals, and systems of ethics. And history. How we act as one group in time. Traveling together. Learning from each other, suffering from each other. Inextricably linked to every event from our past. Physics, astronomy, biology, painting, theater, literature, medicine, technology bound together by our historical nature. The miraculous capacity we’re given to remember, record, and build upon a shared past. And most touching and charming of all, love. How we care for certain others. Family of course. But certain strangers we meet, with no ties or obligations at all, and “fall in love” with, maybe end up spending an entire life together until death do us part.

What motivates these things? There are passions, standards of behavior, impulses, feelings, built into us all as a species. We certainly didn’t choose those. We are actors while acted upon. Players while seeming to be played. And where do we go next? Is death really a horrible curse? An end?

I know that I hate saying goodbye. I’ve kept in touch with many of my past lovers for this reason. The ones I haven’t I feel terrible about. It’s a death in itself, to never hear again from someone I once loved dearly, to never know how they’re doing, or what. So death is a sad goodbye to this world we know nothing about, but become so attached to! It’s no different than the attachment I get to a great book. I hate the last pages, and I usually cry at the final word, because the book is over. The story is done. That world is ended.

And so with life. Is it any different? Aren’t I as attached to this life, not knowing whether it’s non fiction or fantasy. Not knowing whether it’s real or an illusion. We are actors. Lovers. Players. We invest so much into this intricate dollhouse of finite space and time. And where do we go? Who shall we be next, when we, when I, this visiting individual, am forced to take my leave?