For some reason Freddy Mercury is on my mind and that incredible song by Queen Who wants to live forever. I might have to listen to it on my way home today because I am not really sure why mind would bring it up at this exact moment. But I do have something to write so I might as well get after it.
So who wants to live forever? I mean, it would be nice. There would be no more death, no more loss, just eternity and foreverness. This is the wish and desire of most people who are religious and it is mine as well, not because I dread going to hell, and hope I can pray my way into heaven, but rather because that is the only way I can behold and speak to the people who have died whom I miss so very very much.
I don’t want to live forever for that very reason, but intellectually I am torn between the people who have gone and my children. I want to stay for them, but I don’t mind one day going because it will be my time and someone else deserves to steer the ship for a little while.
Such a morbid topic I know, but strangely I find that you either think about and talk about death and your life becomes more meaningful somehow, or you avoid the topic and death comes baring into your life crushing you and suffocating your soul.
Of course the other great thing that comes with the appreciation of our mortality is that we have to get at the things we are going to get it. As Hamlet so beautiful put it, and I’m not going to quote here, just awkwardly paraphrase, if it be not now, then when?
Now is all that we have and for this reason I don’t want to live forever. I don’t want to wait and push things off for another day. I know things can’t happen immediately. Things take time, but the desire to be and have what we want and desire needs to burn brightly in our hearts. This is what it means to be human. To wake up each and every day and welcome a new opportunity to meet people and share a few laughs. We don’t know how many opportunities we get, so we should cherish them while we can, because if you really thought about it, you’d agree with me that nobody wants to live forever.
(Not that I plan on leaving anytime soon)
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@monroefiles
