The reason I think life is remarkable is that you can be standing outside breathing in the fresh morning air, hearing birds chirping, seeing the Sun rising, all of which make you believe there is no end to the beauty that we can find in this world. But then maybe you go back inside, and then you see the newspaper telling you about a thousand people killed in some massacre in some faraway part of the world you probably won't ever visit in your entire life, each of these people having lived normal lives with normal families, and normal ambitions, all of which are abruptly ended by the hands of others. There's no doubting that it can really be cruel and twisted sometimes. Most people know the many intangible feelings you get when you appreciate the beauty of life. But what of the unhappiness in life? Is there a place for it? Do we merely acknowledge its presence? Do we take it a step further, and revel in its cruelty? That might be going too far for most normal people, but I wonder to what extent we acknowledge it. I don't think one can live one's life having the outlook that it is completely beautiful or completely tragic. Few things are black and white, and life, which is probably the most complicated concept there ever was, is surely no exception. Alright, so how do you strike a balance appropriately? Not many would suggest spending days alternating between laughing and crying, nor for that matter would many suggest that such a perfect balance ought to be struck. It seems far more appealing to say that one should celebrate the beauty of life, but on occasion take time to reflect on the fact that it is far from an ideal world that we live in.

It all gets even stranger when you stop for a second, stare into the distance, and realize how many hundreds of times certain thoughts have passed through your head. Each of them lodged away as a fleeting memory now, but so many things were once the reality of the present, now buried away among a pile of others. Individual days pass in a flash, but collectively years seem to take forever to unfold. Already a good quarter (at least) of my role has been completed. How many more times am I destined to look back and think the same thing? And does one truly know when the end is about to arrive? I cannot begin to comprehend such a feeling; I dread it, I dread life and I dread death. I fear too many good years have gone down the drain with nothing done apart from musing about what this all means. Still no answers there, but I wonder how long I will keep questioning. Knowing myself, it's all too easy for me to do one of two things - give up, or get so focussed on this goal that I end up losing track of other things that perhaps deserve attention. The teen years will soon draw to their conclusion, and thus begin the last few years that I can write off as "youth". After that, we try to sprint to the home stretch, and if we're lucky, go out in grace. If we're not so lucky, of course, then there is even less meaning to it all!

You know, maybe I am doomed, but it doesn't matter, we're all doomed anyway. Realizing this is no great advantage, for this is no secret; in fact, realizing this only goes to make the trip all the more bitter. I wish things were clearer, that there were answers that we could find. That would be too easy, of course; instead, I suppose it's up to us to discover whether we think this is all an illusion, or whether death is not the end, or if life is meant for us to purely enjoy ourselves. Whatever the truth may be, I think I just want to have the last laugh.