The End is Near

Life is short. Short like a blink of an eye. In something like 5 billion years the sun will expand into a red giant and consume the entire planet. Think about how long that is. At the other end of the spectrum is our life. Any time in the next 60 seconds to the next 60 years, I'll be dead. 100 years after that, anybody who ever knew me or knew of me will similarly be dead. We are nothing and will soon be even less than that.
Hence, we have no choice but to make the most of it. Now, I'm not going to dedicate my immediate future to whoring and drinking. I can't afford it. But we should all strive to do more than we currently are. Why? Why should we pour sweat and blood and tears into hard work that will almost immediately be forgotten? Each person must eventually answer that on their own, but here's my take.

We are unique. Each and every one of us is unlike everybody else who ever was or will be. We get to make the smallest scratch on the surface of time, but it is our scratch. Small things in great numbers can do amazing things. Ask ants or bees. For us, making that mark might lead to wondrous things we can't possibly imagine. you might choose to make your mark with your children, or art, or politics. Unfortunately most of us choose to make our marks by wasting our lives as product consumers and drama queens.

Another way I see us wasting our lives is through religion. I don't mean that religion is inherently a waste. What I mean is that the belief in an afterlife, by definition, belittles this life. This small time we have is merely the conductor tapping on his music stand before the symphony starts. If you believe there is an eternal life coming up then what is this life except for practice? A warm up? A mistake?

Religion means we have more coming. I don't believe we do. Every moment we have here is absolutely precious because we don't know how many more moments we have in store. Speaking of...I'm going to go do something productive.