Worthwhile

Sometimes I forget why I bother existing in this world. When I look around me, I see nothing but sheep being led to the slaughter, souls being destroyed by vicious shepherds and enough suffering to fill a million masochistic novels.

Even the air I breathe and the food I eat is tainted with the very filth of our planet. Pollutants and toxins, both physical and mental taint my mind and body threatening to poison my very soul and wither the flower of my heart like a tortured weed.

"Why breathe, why live, why move about at all?" the world cries in agony. "Why even bother shuffling around like ants on a tiny dirtball drifting aimlessly in space." Everything we do, everything we are is but a cosmic joke, a testament to the futility of our own existence.

We seem to be nothing more than a planet waiting to be destroyed by some meteor or cosmic shower. Our lives and our existences amount to nothing more than worm food. Our achievements are nothing but petty tokens placed before an unforgiving universe.

But yet I carry on. I carry on with a relentless vigor. Baring tooth and nail I hurl myself at time itself, kicking and screaming in a quest to fulfill my destiny. For I know that there is something out there that is bigger than I. Because every night as I go to sleep, I hold my beloved close and all that pain, all of that emptiness and heartbreak goes away, filled with a whole new sensation, the intoxicating emotion of love.

Where science makes us feel insignificant creatures in the universe and religion teaches us we are nothing before God, love teaches us we are worth something. Love lets us scale the universe in a single step, love makes our souls immortal, love makes this seemingly pathetic existence worthwhile.

Because long after I am gone, long after this planet has been blasted into dust, long after everything humans have ever known is gone, imprints of us will be left behind. Like fingerprints on glass, we'll leave our mark on the universe.

It's the only way I know that I'll be bigger than myself, larger than my own existence. It's the only way I can reach new heights and feel new joys, it's the only reason I keep going and the only reason I keep breathing.

So every time I get ready to cast aside life, to raise the white flag and surrender before the demons of this world, I hold her close and remember, I remember why I fight. I may be destined to be worm food, I may forever stay insignificant in the eyes of the universe but I will never, ever lose my reason for living, my reason for breathing.

Because the only thing I know that's bigger than everything, is the reason for it and if I forget that, if but for a moment, I will be destroyed inside and out and only then will be that insignificant lump of matter the universe seeks to turn me into, only then will I have lost my value, my meaning. Only then will life be truly worthless…