Death and Decay

Death is just another scenery for the living to see, and decay is the process that gets things there, which in its own being is another scenery. Although one scenery leads to another, both have different weight upon the humane existence. Death is dealt with more swiftly compared to decay - though it is indefinite that death brings greater impact.

In decay there is still hope. But because there is hope, there is also the pessimistic viewpoint of impending doom. It's always hanging in the air when you're doing your part to save a person's life, or trying to save the environment. One mistake, whether on your part or another's could bring the person one step or one moment closer to death. Though does it really matter? All that talk about chance and possibilities? According to humane morals, it does. It's illogical, isn't it, to "waste" effort on something or someone that will soon be on a deathbed to whatever may come afterwards. But moral was never a logical dispute. It's more of an emotional and ethical one; one that goes not on the train of altruism, but more towards what is dear to the heart and closest to the priceless value of life.

Because death is ever present, the cost of life can never be summed appropriately. Insurance companies try to value death through actuarial costs. Every life holds some amount of economic power, and perhaps that is the value of death - not what your head is worth, but what it might be worth if you were still alive. That way, there is no logical way of placing value. It is all up to the corporate world to decide. Is it ever fair to place such a subjective evaluation on a single mind and decision of peoples of the corporate country? No. Perhaps that is why there are many sorts of insurers. An example would be like Godly vs. earthly insurance. Which one is the best to insure death? If you are a believer of afterlife, you will place large amounts of effort towards ensuring you live out death in a better way. But what do we actually want from our own deaths? Is it the satisfaction that we die for a value? How is that value actually defined? Is it through living a meaningful life? Or just using ourselves for some cause that happened in an instance - like just yesterday.

But death comes both as a punishment and a reward. For some, it is an escape, but for some, it is a punishment. I believe it is just the moments before you die, which lay the biggest impact; not on yourself, but others. That perhaps is a way to measure the meaning of your death - not life. Your life will be forgotten in the biographies and writings that speak to the world or a community about you. Then at last your memories might be embedded your family member's voices and maybe your family tree. Though, you are forgotten as time passes by. Though it is a paradox. In death, you are remembered through living memories of those who knew you. But they still know you, and that will not change until the last person forgets you.

But who's to say they are not telling the same story of other people that died like you? As if you were one entity with other people in your "world community" that you never got to know. A fuss starts the moment you die, because people are curious. The they start to connect you to things. And in your death, a collective moment occurs where you are pinned on the walls with people alike you. Maybe that's how it is. We all return to a place where the dead are remembered, but not through names, just acts and perceptions - history. We all become some part of history that ended in some place in time.

If we're all bound to go to the same place after all these things. Then, in death we are unity as one entity. The boundless categories in life do not apply anymore. It is just one history and the living are the ones reproducing our past lives and advancing our actions into items that we could never imagine possible. The future is a past repeated plus the recent amount of knowledge accumulated. Basically, the future is the history being replayed, but by adding in a new spices to it.

When history repeats itself, we talk about the past; and the dead rise again. Death reunites the living, but the dead are already united with each other. Enemies and allies are just names on the walls waiting to be forgotten, and a quiet yet mysterious balance is achieved in death - one that involves no victory or loss. One where both sides are side by side, but it is only the living that choose to relive it through perceptions.

If the dead can lay in peace and serenity, why can't the living do so?

Death teaches us a valuable lesson: life is valued beyond diamonds and riches that allow you to reach for the clouds. To be able to live is to have the potential to create a story that ripples into the future. Why waste it on harming each other? All we are doing is reminding us of death, where in our biggest mistakes we dug our own graves. Let us not let the dead remain wasteful trophies of life, let us commemorate them by achieving a peace in life, where they could only achieve in death.