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Do or Die
by G Diesel
I walk around and I see the pain on people’s faces. I can look into
their eyes and see their heartache. I can tell that their soul is
wounded. There is emptiness there, a hole where their joy used to be.
All they want is something to believe in, something to hope for. A
reason to keep fighting, to keep struggling, to answer the bell in
those late rounds, to get out of fucking bed in the morning.
I know cuz I’ve been there, I’ve carried that weight. I’ve stared down
the gloomy visage of hopelessness and spit in his fucking face. Our
lives are a test, an uphill endurance race on rocky terrain, a never
ending series of battles in the war for our prosperity. This game is
one we’re not expected to win, this test an exam that no one wants us
to pass. A life less ordinary, one of uncommon achievement is an
abstract, undefined height we’re never meant to reach. We are to live
bleak, workaday lives until our vessel expires, keeping the machine of
society rolling forward until our shells can provide compost for next
year’s crops.
We are not all destined to influence public opinion, to wage the plague
of war or to cure the illnesses that ail our brethren, but that does
not devalue our potential to contribute to the betterment of man. I
have long been so focused on uplifting my family, on carrying my
friends, on building opportunities for my descendants, on saving the
world. I have assigned myself this unfair expectation for so long that
eventually it became that which others expect. So be it. I understand
that fate chooses certain men to carry a burden beyond their mere
mortal understanding. For those amongst us picked to bear this load, we
must accept this expectation and go about our business of raising the
village.
In the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzche brilliantly posed what has come
to be among the more trite phrases pertaining to human survival when he
wrote “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.” But he was right, you
know, hence the fact that this classic quote lived long enough to
become a cliché. Even the best lives, those which we are so
blessed to be able to pursue, are little more than long strings of
risk, pain, violence, suffering, confusion, fear and sorrow. Troubles,
tumult and hard times which we either put an end to or we allow to put
an end to us. Life is a matter of survive and advance, progress or
perish, do or fucking die.
So much of our ability to hang tough and endure hinges on a mere matter
of perspective. Your idea of a “life or death” scenario and your
understanding of a raw deal or the dealing of a bad hand may seem a
little flimsy as compared to the similar outlook of say a cancer
survivor or war veteran. Compare your obstacles and anguish to that of
those who have seen some shit in their day and all of the sudden, your
daily challenges may not seem so imposing. Do or die for you and me,
and do or die for a kid on the streets in Somalia may not be exactly
the same fucking thing.
This do or die approach to life, this desperate “time is ticking away”
quest, were I to be completely honest, is born out of fear. Fear that,
like in so many situations I’ve seen before, essentially were I to stop
doing I would start dying. You see, I’ve long been motivated by my own
interpretation that a life led without the pursuit of dreams is no life
at all, or for that matter is no life I’d ever want to lead.
Death to me means more than the common expiration of a carbon-based
life form. When I speak of death, I talk of the death of a dream. A
life spent without the pursuit of dreams and the chase of the
extraordinary, is for all relevant arguments, a life without intent, a
life without meaning. I’ve forever feared throwing up my hands and no
longer caring about anything bigger than myself, fighting for anything
beyond my current standing and my present environment—being confined by
the narrow confines of my daily life, my mind constrained by the limits
so many people operate within for their entire earthly existence.
I’ve observed with great sorrow, those that have quit on life, those
that have thrown in the white towel on their dreams. Friends and family
alike, each of whom with such great potential, all with such tremendous
promise who eventually allowed the constant strain and unyielding
barrage that can be the daily grind, grind them down to nothing,
beating them to a pulp until they gave in. This inevitable outcome was
not a result of they themselves being weak, but instead of life being
so goddamn unforgiving, unsympathetic and downright hard. The kind of
lives Thomas Hobbes long ago termed “nasty, brutish and short.”
I fight each day to never succumb to these great oppressive forces. To
be an example to those compelled to be chewed up and spit out by the
soulless machine that is the modern world. To help them find glory in
the struggle, to find joy in the smirks of their detractors, to find a
light in the dark, barren landscape that appears to be their future.
They need to know that they aren’t alone, that they are combatants in
the good fight and that in that brawl can be found the meaning they so
desperately seek.
“That boy sure does have determination”, my aunt recently quipped to my
mom… An observation that when passed my way, prompted me to smile. I
can imagine how things must seem to the outsider, how I must appear
obsessed and delusional, idealistic and unrealistic. But I know that I
am none of those things and all of them at the same time. I am the
warrior leading the charge, the spark in the damp cold, the beacon in
the most bleak of foggy nights. I am obligated to give my all,
committed to never give in. I have sworn a solemn oath to weather the
storm and continue on. If not for me then for all those whose dreams
lay lifeless, I will do until I die. |
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