After several hours of reading in my room, I decided upon a change of scenery. I stepped out my front door and sat on the first of three steps in my front yard and continued reading �Invisible Monsters�. Cars went up and down my court, the sun was out beating down on me, and I felt my body start to warm and my face perspire. I got up from the step, moved near my front door and sat down next to a pillar which provided shade from the heat. I noticed a small white moth flying low to the ground next to me. It seemed to be struggling to fly and it looked to me as if it were dying. I ignored the book in my hand for a small while and just stared at the moth. It whimpered in the air for several more seconds and then landed roughly on the ground, at which point I assumed it to be dead. I sat there watching the moth on the ground. I thought about how insignificant the moths� death was, and here I was watching it die; the only witness to its life�s end.

My mind started to stroll.

I thought about how all things that are alive at one time, must die at one time. To be alive is to one day die. The moth was trivial and useless to the world. No one cares that it died, there will be no remorse. No sorrow. Life went on without a second thought. This is true for all living things, including humans. A person dies and people go on with their lives, not knowing or caring. There might be a small group of people, usually close friends and family, who mourn. More will attend a funeral out of sympathy and self-gratification. Instead of showing that they cared about you when you were alive, they rather do it when you�re dead. For the most part, people get over you in a day. Some a week. Some a month.

It all depends on how much you did for them.

But nonetheless, people move on, it�s in our nature. We�re all in it for ourselves. We don�t cry because the person lived a bad life or a good life. We cry because they are gone out of our life. My life.

It�s always me first, the rest is just annoying details you�d rather not talk about.

After sometime I started to read again, occasionally glancing up from the text to check on my new found death. A few minutes went by. I looked at the moth on the ground. It started to move.

It wiggled on the ground for a while and suddenly, it was air born again. Fighting for its meaningless life, just like the rest of us. There�s really no point, most of us are dead already. We�re all afraid of dying and that makes us all scared to live.

The moth staggered in the air and then landed on the ground, harder than its previous death a few seconds before.

The difference between us and the moth is our intellect. We have the ability to think. We have the power to give our meaningless life substance. We have the ability to make what would seem to most a dull activity a very thought provoking experience. We have the power to overcome boredom by just using our head. But now, rather than create using our minds, we fashion meaning to our lives with monetary details.

We buy our happiness.

We work dreary jobs for too long. We take on large monthly bills to justify our way of life. The stuff we buy gives our pointless job meaning. Now were not working our life away for nothing, we have a new sofa to show for it. We save for vacations to get away from our life. Our vacations consist of going to theme parks and spending too much money on a bottle of water and waiting in line for hours. We come back to our life, our jobs, and start saving again for another vacation. Another life. As Thoreau liked to say, we are �breathing the same air over and walking on our own shadows��until we die. We sum up our entire life in a job description.

The moth still lies on the ground belly up. I can�t be sure if it�s dead or alive.

Rather than create, we over-eat. We over spend. We spend too much time in front of a mirror. We spend so much time indulging our senses that we forget to indulge our minds. We create little dramas in our life to hide ourselves from the bigger problems, which inevitably consume our life.

Me, I�m still sitting in the shade. The moth, still lying helplessly on the ground.

Instead of taking a walk, enjoying the beauty of nature, we watch TV. We view other people�s problems on TV to forget about our own. Instead of traveling, seeing the world, we watch the Travel channel. We buy imported furniture from all the places we would like to have gone. Instead of lying in the sun, listening to the wind against the trees or any of the white noises we take for granted, we go to tanning salons. Instead of living life to its fullest, we believe in an afterlife. Something better. All the more reason not to live.

We are dead already.

After sometime, I rose to my feet. I went over to my front door and looked down at the stupid little moth one last time. I was still unsure if it was dead or alive, and I didn�t wait around to find out, because after all, does it really matter? I opened the door and went inside.