We must shrink from being fully alive

Untitled from the Landscape sequence of "Rapt in the Nameless Reverie"
30" x 30" lambda print, 2008

I want to put a few lines here, but not go on too long. Far greater writers have written far more numerous accounts of what I want to say. I acknowledge them. But for a moment, a few lines, I want to speak of death, of knowing of its existence. Any moment, any time-- it can come. And mostly we fight it. We fight the illness, the attacker, the elements. For the most part, we avoid direct confrontation when possible (we are passive aggressive that way), except in rare cases. Occasionally, one looks out over the rushing river and sees someone drowning, losing the fight. One sees them giving up, and makes the choice to fight the dark specter on their behalf. Sometimes, you fight when you don't want to, and other times you get to choose your battles. Many times we win, but alas. Eventually, a day will come when we have expended all our strength to our cause, and we will choose to lay down our weapons in search of peace.

Then there are other kinds of death, sneaky, conniving, stab-in-the-back types. Those types do not give us the dignity to fight or choose. These deaths aren't at all fair (if any are). Some are accidents. But others... well, I leave to your imagination.

So to you, Driver, who decided to run a red light at 50 mph (in a 35 zone), when opposing traffic was already in the intersection, as was my fragile pedestrian body (missed by a mere two feet), to you I curse with seven terrible attacks this week, at least one of which will be VD.

Subject line quoted from Ernest Becker.