Finding Salvation
Yesterday I was 7 years old. Today I am 26. Tomorrow, I die. It’s hard to tell whether or not the period since the close of my teenage years has been a vast series of lifetimes or a simple blink of an eye. The fringe years. The final rush of youth. A raging fire of dreams, passions, and risks that burnt 50,000 miles across the continent in under three years. It took me to Baton Rouge. Phoenix. Los Angeles. Back to Chicago. An explosion of unworldly ecstasy and desolate loneliness, flagrant thrill and tenacious angst. I’m closer to 30 than 20. Closer to 40 than 10. It can be frightening; life’s intolerable brevity. But at the same time, it’s a shining reminder to live like there’s no tomorrow, to paraphrase Marcus Aurelius. I’ve beaten myself to shit over the years and rebuilt myself again too many times over. Physically, I don’t feel a day over 17. Mentally, I feel like there’ve been a million different lives lived. Although I will forever remain a work in progress, much has been learned.
The existentialists say that the key to living the good life is finding purpose. For atheists, this means through tangible earthly means. For the pious, through God’s plan. We all face the same setting sun of our final hour. Our lives are a single day, and we don’t know when night will fall. We just know that it will. Hemingway wrote that how we live is what truly distinguishes one person from another. I tend to agree that…
