me...

Last night i was shot almost twenty times in the chest and arms, in one of the most realistic dreams i've ever had. i have been dead before, but never dying. Until i got back to sleep, my chest held a phantom pain.

Yet the experience of dying was only of secondary importance. The paramount, tragic irony of the dream was that even as i lay dying, i could not convince anyone of mortality. The extreme frustration of that metaphysical alienation felt conspicuously familiar, and i believe it explains why most of the girls i've dated have turned out to have some sort of life-threatening illness: they are better able to grasp what i have spent my life trying to impart.

Death is a gift. Death is a gift. Death is a gift. Got it yet? This is not to say that i will be happy to die. But without death, life is meaningless.

You may think i'm silly for being so impassioned and impatient. It is exactly that kind of proselytizing apathy i mean to unmask. Active apathy is simply the fear of loss. And if we were immortal, i'd be right with you; why risk suffering? But we have not the time to be cautious. We can't afford to not be passionate.

You may die today. Or you may live. But don't hide in between.

posted by Arthur @ 5/29/2002 10:58:00 AM

Wednesday, May 29, 2002