Life : Death - Death : Survive
-Life: Death-
-Death: Survive-
Luke Buttigieg
By the fire a grandfather and his grandson sit at end to each other. Grandfather begins to speak.
I am a man of seventy-three. I have not survived life, and in that I have survived. Of all the challenges that common man is faced with I have passed them all and now I come to this. Failure. I feel it coming. Death is calling my name in strange languages. Through searching for life in all places imaginable and looking for a reason, a meaning, a possible conclusion, I come to this. I realise how the end shall be. Just that, and end. Do you know what I mean? No, you don’t. You are naïve. You are stupid. You look to religion and find your way from that. You create alter egos, and pseudo meanings. You make up reasons and prophecies. You need to know…You need to know… I want you to know. Forget your beliefs and listen to me. Lend me your ears and crouch beside me. Toss away your lies and deceit. Throw them away and allow you to harness the reality of life. Listen and you shall hear. Hear and you shall know. Know and you shall live. Live and you will die. These are the answers:
A boy growing up on a farm. Living with his parents alone. Brought up to be a catholic, brought up to be religious. Baptised, reconciled, and religiously tattooed. Growth was accompanied by teachings from a school, a catholic school. What could a child like this form into? Wrong, you are wrong. No he wouldn’t be a saint; he wouldn’t be a believer. He would become a thinker. Life breezed past this boy at a pace unknown to man. Nothing made sense to him. He saw, and was told to believe, so he did. But for a limited time, for his mind was growing and expanding while inhaling information. Yes, this boy did grown into a man, a man who believed in his teachings, but subconsciously new better. This man was I. I once was subject to the life of being a zombie.
I searched for a life in which to survive. Every hiccup threw me off course and led me astray. Through living as an adult and moving to an elderly man you notice things. Things that are invisible to youth. As you age your physical vision blurs and your mental vision takes over. Life’s wrapping paper is removed and you see your gift for what it really is. When you see your gift you are reminded of your hated cousins that give you shitty presents for your birthday. Are you sure you want the grim reality? Do you really want to know? I’m going to tell you.
We all know that life is fragile, but we do not know to what extent. This is what I am trying to show you. Our lives are so brittle that they are over the minute that we are born. We are destroyed the moment we become a concoction of living organism that is vulnerable to everything. We die the minute we are given a name. We are dead at birth. Listen up, this may be painful. There is no God. There is no heaven and there is never going to be a heaven. There is no hell, and there will never be a hell that could possibly amount up to our presently acquired “hell”. Religion was brought to you by the youth of our world, and passed down as a vicious cycle. Even the elderly forget to realise that they can see the truth. They blind themselves from the reality of what is surrounding them. There is no time in your life when you can truthfully say that you have won. You can never in your life that that you have survived something. You can’t go on forever. You will die. Your soul will not prevail and lead you on to a better place. There is no better place. I am no pessimist. I am no sadist; I merely possess the ability to see. My vision is perfect now. Pleasures of life are misery. Misery is our pleasures. The truth is, we find pleasure from grief. How else would we go on. In my age I have the answer. I know all there is to know and one day you will too. In my age I present to you the fact that you cannot survive life. Your destiny is quite clear. You will die. You can never survive life.
Did you listen? Did you hear? If you heard, do you know? If you know, then live. Can you live? Will you live? No. Then die.
By Luke Buttigieg.
Friday 9th June 2000
