What is the point of life? I believe we've all wondered this. I mean after all, we all think sometimes, why are we here? When we are alone in our bedrooms. In school, during a boring class. While friends talk about things we do not care for. Pretty much we all reached a point were we questioned our existence. Either because we hated the present moment of our living so much, or just out of boredom. However, why we question is not the matter (because that is easy to answer; we are human beings, an intellectual race. We are the beings that seek mysterious to solve. That is why we have studies devoted to answering the questions i.e. science.). The real question is the one we all ponder. Why are we here? I believe I have found the answer.
Life is no great pleasure. Look about you. It is no heaven. We live in a world of suffering; where children starve to death, little girls most sell their bodies to buy food for their families, where death is sometimes the only peace. These problems may not exist in America. Surely anybody who gets to read this email will not understand the plight of those people, in the "third world" nations. However, America suffers from its own diseases: A society of abuse. Where people must work hard labor jobs, for such horrible pay. Case in point, my mother, she worked 5 hours, in which she spent in a sweaty factory carefully sewing the interiors of some luxury cars. What does she do with the 35 dollars she earned in 5 hours, she spends it on a doctor appointment because her back hurts from all the labor. The doctor examines her for 5 minutes, takes the 35 dollars and "shooos" her away. What type of system is this?
By no means am I calling for a socialist revolution. Socialism is fundamentally flawed. It completely ignores the fact that humans, in general, are selfish beings, who wish to seek their own fortune. What I�m saying is this, life is hard for the lower and middle class. Way too hard. The rich abuse us in order to make money, this is the way the system works. In general man is just a gear in the machine of our society, and the poor are the most worked gears, and the most easily replaced. When one of us wears down, just get another and pretend that one gear never existed. Most humans live this way. So why live it? Why do you want to live a life as just a gear in some guys machine? Well, there are moments were we get to stop rotating on our shafts, and be with our loved ones. But this is only a small bit of our lives. We spend 1/3 of our life asleep, 1/3 at work (or school), and the rest we use; a little to shit, shower, eat, and do all these things to live. So in short, our time to enjoy life is relatively small. Well yes it may be small but you can have so much fun. True, but do not ignore the fact that you will suffer during this free time too. More likely than not we suffer through most of our lives. So now what? We are gears that suffer life. Seeking a cure to the pain, the only cure is death, which in general we all fear. After all, it is the great unknown. We have no idea what is after this. If anything. Is their God? Is their Heaven? Time will tell. So back to life. What is the meaning? To put it simply. It is to ignore that we are alive. To ignore that we will someday die. To forget that we are mortal beings. Face it, the times you have fun, are the times when you let go of everything. This is pretty easy to accomplish, life is pretty easy to escape, nowadays. Why, there is a wide assortment of SOMA you can take. You have TV (ignore your life and live that of a sitcom�s family), Sports (immerse yourself in the neverending numbers and statistics), Work (do like Sisyphus and enjoy your suffering, enjoy the curves of the rock falling back down the mountain, you just rolled it on top of), LOVE (oh yes, this includes sex. You really don�t think much here do you? Its just enjoy the feeling, forget about everything, and just feel all the good times rush to your head), ALCOHOL (Yes, why do you think people drink? they enjoy the taste? Beer tastes awful, it is the whole loosening up affect. Makes you shake off the chains of society and return the to the primal form, of emotion), oh and lets not forget my favorite, drugs.
Yes I�m going to dedicate a paragraph to drugs. You think people do not know drugs kill and are addictive. Sure there are a few who don�t, but the vast majority know exactly what they are getting into when they choose to stick that needle in their vein, or snort the powder up their nose. Druggies (Junkies) just want an escape of the world. They don�t like the rules, the order, the suffering of it all. They too just want to feel the joy. Heaven on Earth. You take a drug, you forget about a lot of stuff, a lot of bad stuff. You forget about your fathers abuse, the fact that your boss is riding your ass, the D you got on your report card that will keep you from going to a good university, the knowledge that all your 'friends' aren�t even 'friends', in fact you forget a lot of things. You just sort of enjoy what you got left. The walls, moving to the beat of Bradley. The tingles shooting up and down your spine. You just enjoy the small things. In essence you find a part of life you enjoy. Wait a minute, you find a PART OF LIFE YOU ENJOY. My goodness, that means junkies are the people most in tuned with life. After all, the other SOMAs have you forget life. While drugs have you pay attention to the small details that make it great. Yes I know. Drugs are bad. Society shuns them. Who controls society though? Oh yes, the people running the machines. You remember right? We are just a gear in their machine. So why don�t they want us to use drugs. Are the worried about our health? If that was the case, why must my mother use a days pay to cure the pain that work causes her? Maybe its because if we all took drugs, we'd just realize that we don�t need to kill ourselves laboring. That we can just nod away life happily. Of course, our society would become a society of sloths. So in theory we'd pretty much be the start of our own destruction.
I really haven�t answered anything, huh? By now your probably wondering why am I still reading? Don�t worry, here comes my point. Life is a pain in the ass. You hate living it, because it causes you so much pain. But you don�t want to stop living it, because you�re afraid. So we just find a way to enjoy life, even if it�s all suffering. Hence drugs, alcohol, tv, casual sex, movies, dancing, video games, trips to the beach, food, etc, etc. It�s just a way of escaping life for a moment, to escape the labor of life. We all need an escape, either through ignoring life (sex and such), or by kinduv making it better -while at the same time making it shorter-(drugs). So find your escape, and live your life. Just remember that life like all things end. So don�t worry about all the suffering, we all get a nice rest.
Miguel Lopez
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