In The End What Are We?

ASHES TO ASHES DUST TO DUST

In the end what are we?

I've always had a feeling, a yearning to be someone special, someone with a name that lives on.

Does everyone feel this way?

Well I would prefer to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all.   

Look at the famous people now leaving us. How did they become who they are? Did it seem as impossible to them as it does to others? Was it easier in the past to be someone who invents something, someone who strikes it rich, or someone who becomes famous?
  
It seems to me that becoming someone special in the past, would have been much easier than it would be today, considering the extreme lengths and skills that are now required to be the best in a chosen field.   

But are we not ALL special.

Click on the link below to see what sparks these words within me?          http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2341604/johnny_cash_hurt/   Watching the clip with this song moved me. Within it is a message, a question, and a confronting answer.

As Johnny sings you can tell he feels every word. It’s as if his soul itself is revealed, and the answer to the question he asks, is to him heart breaking. A great man knows he is running out of tomorrows and what has he become? Nothing but another old man that will die, just a memory that will fade away, an empire of dirt, swallowed up by the world and by us. 

Us the future.

In the end we are nothing but memories. Memories in the minds of others that will also become nothing.  

Within me I feel me. 

When I die my body will perish. But for some reason I feel I will still be. I don’t know where or why, or how long for, but that little flame that burns within me just can’t be put out. To think that it would go out makes me worry, and makes me sad. 

I'm not religious. I don't attend church or read the bible. I don't worship anyone. But for some reason I have faith. Faith that the morals and basic rules of life that I follow will let my little flame live on. I try to stick to the 10 commandments but at times temptation prevails. I bury thoughts deeply that I ought not share.  Doesn't everyone? 

I was watching a show about the war in Iraq and began discussing it with my children. They had already formed the opinion that we should just blow the whole place up. I asked them what they would do if someone came into our town, our home, and murdered or hurt one of our family members. 

They said they would get them back. 

So an uneducated child from age 5 to 12, can share a similar perspective to so called educated adults. Adults that carry out irreversible actions regularly, from revenge and from instinct.   

As hard as it may be the people affected by war need to forgive and move on. Easy said. I don't know if I could but to hold on to the anger and seek revenge makes more suffer. The war is fueled by revenge, anger, loss, greed, hatred and sin. Those affected become wrapped up in their own horrific situations and this I understand. But I wonder if you asked them if they would let it all go to see the pain stop, if they would or not? Is hate and revenge, more powerful than love and compassion? 

To me war is a machine, a machine driven by evil, a machine that will run us down and stop just long enough to reverse over us. Then like us, it will blindly continue on consuming, until it has nothing...  

I wrote this in early 2010 after listening to the Nine Inch Nails song titled -Hurt-, performed by Johnny Cash.  I suggest you take a moment to listen to it and take a moment to reflect. I look forward to reading this in ten to twenty years to see if I still feel the same.                                                           
                                                                         copyright2010JWILSON