Memory Fragments

The Beginning Of The End (IX/X)

But, what if, even though they are borrowed, the value of something exceeds its returns? Is it worth it to invest it even though you will never get it back? That is something called a sacrifice. The most human of sacrifices.

Tell me, what do you value the most? Material goods? Resources? Values? Mental and or physical fortitudes? Time? Life? Death? Infinity? Eternity? Finitism? Perhaps, your humanity? You know, all of the things that make you human. I want to end with simple questions that involve everything I have told you. I want you to ponder them thoroughly and write your thoughts as they will guide you on this next journey of ours.

Are you a pragmatic person? Do you use logic and reasoning before emotion and impulse? Do you know the value of thinking before existing? Or, are you the opposite of everything I just mentioned?

Now, are you attached to this world? Do you need the things in it, or do you want them? Both? Neither? Well, how about goods? Be it tangible or intangible ones. Would you like more of them or less? Could you procure them on your own, by asking someone else or, maybe, getting them by force and or stealing? In the case of wanting less, would you toss them aside, part with them, and give them to someone else who might want and or need them? Or would you just store them somewhere in case you do want or need them?

What are your points of view about love? Do you like it? Being in love or being loved? What makes you love things, or, what do you have that makes you loved? Do you think about losing it? Or you, being the thing that is lost? How about the concept of death? Does it make you sad thinking about it? People die every day, and so does their significance and influence on their worlds, or, does it? What is your opinion about that? About leaving something after you die, or being forgotten by everything because you didn't leave anything. You can live inside the mind and heart of someone, you know. Or you can be dead to everyone even though you are still here.

If given the chance, would you change something about yourself? Yes? No? If not, why not? If yes, what would it be? Are you happy, or sad with yourself? The way you were, are or would be. Are you happy, or sad about the world? Would you change something in it? Again, yes, no, why to not, and what to yes. That said, do you like change? Or would you rather not have it and leave things be what they were, are, and will be?

Are you a person who thinks about what they did right or wrong? Emphasis on did. Why? Do you remember your past? Yes, no, maybe? How was it? Or, why it wasn't. At the present, how are you? Physically, mentally, all about you. Do you like the existing you? Why? Now, do you think about the future? If, at least, your own or someone else's. What do you see in it? What do you want to see? Are you doing the things to achieve it? Remember, don't get stagnated or stagnate others, ok?

Do you have any ideals? Tell me. Perhaps, some truths that you know of? What about what you consider justice? Isn't that just a facet of self-righteousness? No? Yes? Then, what is your definition of these three things and how do you apply them? Are they correct? Or are they wrong? What if yours are, indeed, correct, and someone else's are not? Have you compared them? What do the other people think? Have you considered that? Maybe you are the one in the wrong all along and not them. Maybe you are both wrong. Or maybe you, both, are right. Hey, maybe a third party can lend an opinion on the matter, wouldn't you think? As to not have a bias toward one or the other.

If only you seem to agree with yourself, doesn't that make you stand alone in your opinions? What if there are others like you? People that share your values but are also alone in their paths. Wouldn't it be best to band together and forge a single path for all based on your shared interests? What about forking roads for those who, along the single forged path, don't seem to agree on the directions they are going and want to take a different approach to their destinations?

But, what if, to make those forks, you have to go back in your journey and help the ones behind you? Would you sacrifice your walked road, your time and life spent, backtracking just to help others diverge from the path you so painstakingly made for you and or them? Would you just continue along and leave others to find their paths? After all, the strong lead the weak to better outcomes through the darkness, right? Or is it that the weak show the strong the light needed to see what lies ahead, instead of blindly following?

Take your time answering and come back after the fact, ok? I can wait years if need be, you know? A book is timeless when engraved into the culture of civilization and practiced by its inhabitants. Look at the bible, for example. Or a dictionary. Or my favorites, crossword books and Alice in Wonderland. Well, see you when you are ready to continue.

Have you decided on what you value the most? Did answering my questions spark an interest in these themes? Do you share common ground with me? Or are we opposites? Regardless, I'm humbled you took your time. You did, right?

Anyway, I want to talk to you about the ones I value the most. Time and life. They are the only finite things after all. Or, are they? Well, regardless, one cannot exist without the other. As an old friend of mine once told me, would you spend all of your time in pursuit of life, or would you trade your life for more time? What would you do with either of them? I'll tell you what. When you have either, then you have neither.

The most human thing to do is to give your time to live and share with others. However short that time might be. On the other hand, spending your whole life just to obtain time itself seems a little contradictory and paradoxical, wouldn't you think? And yet, that, also, is the most human thing that can be done. You want life, so you want as much time as you can get to enjoy it. But, why would you want that? Aren't you happy with what you have already? Don't you appreciate it? Why would you want more of something finite? Isn't that the meaning behind it?

If both are finite, why haven't they run out by now? With each birth and death, both are given, and both are taken. So, is it not that they are finite so much as they are borrowed from an infinite individuality and each individual is, in fact, the truly finite one? Never to be replicated perfectly ever again. Is that why we place so much worth into them? Because they are naturally infinite, but, finite for us? If they are infinite, then they hold no value because they are something that everyone has. Always. From their beginning. To their end.

What if we were infinite too? That, as we all know, is, indeed, impossible. But, if we were, wouldn't we also lose all value too? Because time and life have no more meaning and or worth for us, would we lose all of our meaning and worth because we have become something that is beyond our comprehension? Or because, by trading away our humanity, we lose that individuality that was given to us. Those tiny imperfections that set us apart from one another, that fluctuating finite-ness.

What would you sacrifice to gain insights into the values of time and life? Would you trade away your humanity to gain said perspicuity? Or would you conserve it, and live and die without knowing their true acuities? In the end, what do you value the most?

The triangle is the perfect figure to describe this conundrum as it has the minimal sides necessary to form a stable existence and, depending on how you look at it, any of its sides can be the base. Time, life, and humanity. Sure, not all triangles have their bases and angle perfectly equal, but, isn't existence the same way? I leave you with that final question.