I just got reading a book called "The Stranger" for my English class, and it's left me with a lot of thoughts. Life and death...why do we insist on putting meaning in it? Why do some people insist that they're better than others? We're all born the same. We all die one day in one way or another. During the course of our lives, we seem to like to put meaning in places where meaning doesn't exist. Why are we here on this Earth? Eventually all of our lives will come to an end. Everyone wants to make some kind of lasting change that they will be remembered for. They want to better the lives of others, but really, how long will that last?
The dead. It's only a matter of time before they're completely forgotten. Thousands of people die each die without any of us blinking an eye. Life goes on. The world keeps on turning. Some famous people have a big deal made out of their deaths and are remembered for a while, but I find it impossible for them to be remembered forever. Considering the vast age of the earth and the human species, it's only a matter of time before even such famous figures as Aristotle or Socrates are forgotten. After all, how many millenia went past before our earliest written records? Even for those lucky few, it's only a matter of time.
The changes that people make are the same. Some people think that we need to try to make the world a better place one step at a time, and though I partially agree, somewhere deep down I can't help but wonder the point of it. Sure, there might be many changes, but will it end pain and suffering? Will anything change our unalterable destinies to rot into the ground? No...Nothing will. Though the pain can be lessened by such changing actions, no one is ever excempt. And someone who says that all of their work is for others, is lying. Deep down, we are all incredibly selfish creatures by nature because everything is in our own perspective. We don't feel exactly what others do, and so, in our own subconscious mind, they are less important. And anyway, one day, the human species will die off entirely for one reason or another and then the changes will be truly meaningless.
Ever since I was little, I've wondered what the point of even being born was. You're born, you live, you feel emotions, and then you die. My entire life, I've been taught that there is a God and that he's a god of love, but I've never been given any true reason to believe that other than my own desperate clinging to hope. Why would something so divine create pain? Some would say that it's a punishment for sin, but in that case, why would he create creatures capable of "sin"? Why would we be created at all if life is overall meaningless?
I do believe in God, but then again, that may just be my last chance for any hope of escape from the darkest of realities. The hope of a promising and eternal afterlife is all that keeps me going, deep down in my subconscious mind. That and animal instincts to stay alive and stay happy. Because there is only one thing for certain in life, and that is death. Death comes to all of us in time and our lives will be cut to an abrupt end. Why care so much about something so temporary?
Maybe there is an afterlife. Maybe there's not. Maybe it's heaven, but it might be Hell. Maybe it's the cycle of reincarnation, or maybe it lies beyond the river Styx. But the point is, that all of these possibilities seem more important than our current state. Because deep down, we all know that everything is temporary in our short lives, and that there is no true meaning.
I will continue on my opinions on other topics, but I thought that life itself was a good place to start. I don't think that any of my other entries will be this morbid.
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The Thoughts of an Opinionated Teenager
I don't want to bore anyone with my normal life. You all know about normal life. I want to focus on what I think of the world and how it works, at least in my opinions. I don't care if you read or not, though I obviously would prefer that you would.
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