Dying is so easy. Cut off the umbilical cord that ties your life to this earth and then you will cease to exist. End of story. No more struggles. No more pain. In as much as there will no longer be any traces of your physical vessel, no one will give a damn whether you ever had a soul in you. Even the memories that others have of your living self will soon fade, will soon be covered with time's rust. If no one can sustain those memories, your death becomes unnecessary. It is as if you never existed in the first place. As if no one gave birth to you. As if you were a passing page in a storybook that sold poorly.
Living is harder. Let me amend: the hardest. Everyday is a struggle. Everyday, you have to hold on to the life that you know is dwindling with every minute, every second, every millisecond you breathe. It takes a whole lot of effort to go on when nothing else in the world can ignite the fires of your soul or when you are so utterly and terribly uninspired. No matter how wonderful the world seems to those around you, nothing entices you. And because you are but an empty shell that looks out from afar, watching life after life unfold before you while refusing to take part in every unfolding, you seek to be something to someone, if not a someone who could at least do something. You want to create something out of your nothingness so you can be someone valuable to others - or maybe to the world.
To live is the hardest. You have to prove your existence every step of the way. It takes enormous courage to work your ass off, with the knowledge that you wake up every morning getting closer and closer to death, just so you will not be forgotten and to prove that your existence is not sham. That you in fact lived. That you in fact did something for this world, no matter how insignificant it may have been during your lifetime or for the generations that followed.
How vain to wish to be remembered. But if you are alive right now, would you not seek the same? Is it vanity to wish to be remembered for who you are? Is it vanity to be someone valuable to this planet, someone treasured by others? Is it vanity? Yes! Because all humans are vain. All humans with a tangible consciousness, who are possessed by their own subconscious and who want a purpose in life are vain, because being otherwise will wither their existence away. Who wants to live just to be forgotten? Who wants to live for the sake of living? Pish! Stupid humans.
I will live. Cowards die a thousand times before their death.* And I am not one.
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* Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37) by William Shakespeare
