Hallo, people:
It’s that time of the month in which Absolute Write gives me a chance to participate in the Blog Chain. For December it’s THE END OF THE WORLD. Or, just The End. Here are the instructions:
This month’s prompt:
The End (of the World)
Yes, since the predicted Mayapocalypse only fails to materialize once every 500 years or so we are piggybacking on it. Write what you will about the end of the world (those disinclined to eschatology can write about “the end” in a broader sense). Hopefully, after these ends of the world as we know it, we’ll all feel fine.
Participants and posts:
orion_mk3: http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
dolores haze – http://dianedooley.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
randi.lee – http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
bmadsen – https://hospitaloflife.wordpress.com/ YOU ARE HERE!
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
SRHowen – http://srhowen1.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
AllieKat – http://roelke.livejournal.com/ (link to post)
MsLaylaCakes – http://www.taraquan.com/ (link to post)
katci13 – http://www.krystalsquared.net/ (link to post)
meowzbark – http://www.lizzylessard.com/ (link to post)
Angyl78 – http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
Aheïla – http://thewriteaholicblog.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Araenvo – http://www.simonpclark.com/ (link to post)
CJ Michaels – http://www.christinajmichaels.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
SuzanneSeese – http://www.viewofsue.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
BBBurke – http://awritersprogression.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
If someone, right now, comes in and interrupts you reading my blog, he or she gently grabs your chin and lifts it up, then smiles with a hint of irony, you will probably ask yourself: what the hell? And, you will probably just stutter like a frightened, wandering child, when he or she says: it’s all over by tomorrow morning. That’s it. Your world ends in twenty-four hours.
And then what do you do? I find it most interesting to see that people, the selfish, complex beings that we are, all react the same way: oh crap, I have to do everything I wanted to do. I must pronounce my love to the girl I always liked, I must visit as much countries as I can, I must run naked in a crowded shopping mall, whatever rings your bell. But you’re screwed because all you got is twenty-four hours.
Most likely you end up eating tons of ice cream, cookies and watching a movie, moping about the fact that life is going to end in one day, and as the clock winds down to zero, you cry, and then cry some more.
That’s because we humans have fear. It’s fine. Society tells us to be afraid, after all it’s what society wants from us–a bunch of people afraid of acting for themselves, just looking to get a paycheck at the end of the month and carry on with our routines until it’s time to retire and eat apple mush and die in Florida.
Well, things do not work out that way. If you do something about it. The end is only the marking of a new beginning. Yes, corny and cliché, hollywood, Bryan Adams and Hallmark cards all rolled up into one. But true nonetheless. Let’s just look back.
On December 3rd, 2011, at exactly 8:30 am I arrived at my office. On December 3rd, 2011, at exactly 11:30 am I was admitted to a private hospital where doctors told me not to move, there was a big chance I wouldn’t walk ever again.
It was the end of a very particular way of thinking: I’m invincible. And why wouldn’t I have thought that? I was twenty-six, I had a good job, I was healthy and had a college education. Anyone in my position never thought something wrong would happen.
And now, one year later, I realize one thing: the end of a way of thinking has just started another one.
I cherish moments that are simple yet powerful like laughing. I like laughing, a lot. I see the world by what I can learn from it and not what it wants me to learn. I write whenever I can and not when I feel like it. I see my friends but also I see myself. I praise silence. I see colors, sounds, smells and combine them. I talk to people, whoever they are, I might never see them and they might have a lot to teach me. I appreciate my body, though it has flaws, and I strive to make it better. I look at the stars whenever I can. I wake up early and walk outside, just because. I have learned from my mistakes and now say “I don’t know” or “I made that mistake and I’m sorry” with actually giving a damn what people think. I know money doesn’t make me happy; it didn’t stop me from falling and, by the way, Newton was right, there IS gravity. I listen to rivers. I’ve even begun organizing my exit from the beautiful world of Biomedical engineering to seek what I like the most. I just do!
But most importantly, I don’t plan. I do. And when I don’t feel that momentum, that drive, I think about it. Why is it that something is braking me? Am I still afraid? Of course! But I face my fears, there’s no reason not to.
Yet, I know that, no matter how much I write and tell people what to do, for good, they won’t do it. Because it’s not the end of the line for them. It’s the end of a way of thinking that was only mine. All people need to get to the end of their line to understand what I’m talking about. I just hope they do. I hope, within all that I’ve been through, that people really break that chains that bind us to the ground, to what people tell us to do and not what we want to do.
When I boarded my plane, on the way to the Niagara Falls Writer’s Conference, my girlfriend told me one thing that’s so true, it hurts to say that I didn’t come up with it. It was Lao Tzu who said:
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
So I hope all of you meet an end. All ends mark a beginning. And one you should take full advantage of.
Rivers speak wise words
Hospital Of Life 