Killing Time

The other day, I was playing World of Warcraft, and a Guildmate of mine said that he was "killing time as time was killing him." This is a concept that, I believe, anyway, escapes the confines of our conscious minds and is something that we, as humans, take for granted.

There is some terrible news that I have, and it's something that we've all already heard time and again, and yet, for whatever reason, tend not to think about. Just in case you weren't around - or weren't paying attention, for that matter - to hear it, I shall say it once again for your benefit:

You are going to die some day.

I know, I know... Shocking, right? That's just the problem. All too often, the case is that it is shocking to most people. A lot of us actively avoid thinking about the fact that we have a very limited time on this miserable little sphere that we call a planet. Instead, we make all sorts of plans for the future, securing our bank accounts, landing a job that we feel defines us as a person, etc. Hell, most of us don't even make it past our pursuit of the almighty dollar. We tend to ignore death as if it is nothing more than a fairy tale that we tell our children to frighten them into compliance with the rules.

Why, I ask, do we do this? We are all guilty of this. It's not as if we aren't reminded that our time is limited in this life on a daily basis. Not a day goes by that we don't hear of someone that we either know or admire passing away. We even hear news of the deaths of strangers. I really don't feel as if our treatment of the dead is all that respectful, either. We have really gone downhill as a society in this country when it comes to the subject of death. We have gone from revering the dead and respecting our limited amount of life to doing nothing more than allowing the passing of the living to fall through the cracks of bureaucracy.

Do you know what happens to people who die of any cause at all? After the proper authorities are notified and the body is taken off to the morgue, they are assinged a serial number. From there, the medical examiner (a glorified term for a mortician, really) has approximately 48 hours to fill out the appropriate forms for a death certificate. Yes, we need a certificate that states that we are officially dead, these days. After that, the form is mailed off to some other agency whose sole job is to mail it off to the World Health Organization. In this process, the deceased is assinged at least four more serial numbers. They lose their names, identities, and everything else that made them a person. They are no longer someone's son/daughter/husband/wife/neice/nephew etc... They are nothing more than a statistic, at that point.

This, I believe, is entirely inexcusable. We no longer fear death, and therefore categorize it as a way of rationalizing. It's a foreign concept to the lot of us. We go about our day to day lives, doing anything and everything we can to prolong them. There is at least five new diets created every day, each one claiming to be more healthy than the last, and, therefore, expanding your lifespan.

I normally wouldn't have a problem with this, but most of us are only out for ourselves. We want to be the last man standing, so to speak. Rather than using our time on this planet wisely, we splurge it all away, and for what? Honestly, I want you all to think about that for just a few minutes at the very least. What, exactly, is it that you are living for? Is it really all that worth while? Is it really something that people will talk about for generations to come?

I'm not saying that we should all strive to be great leaders and impacts on history and society. What I'm saying is that, thanks to the disregard of death, we have lost all sense of community. There are many factors that led to the loss of community and brotherhood here in America, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened with that, but I'm not going to beat a dead horse on the subject. If you honestly don't know the answer to that, then allow me to point out to you that you have at your disposal one of the greatest tools ever created to gather information, and it's literally at your fingertips right now as you read this.

Listen: I'm not here to scare you all into changing your ways. Realistically speaing, nobody is going to be able to change over night, and I accept that. What I am doing, however, is trying to redirect your thinking to another light. Consider my words here today. Stop killing time, because it's a waste. Instead, utilize your time to do something actually worth all the effort that you put into it. Make it something you can be proud of, and that others can actually respect you for. Do something for your community, or even something small and nice for your parents or significant others. Start small, and then work your way to the bigger things. It all comes in time, which, if you take what I'm saying to heart, you'll find will stop killing you if you can just utilize it properly.