Tonight, as I sat in my car waiting for the ominous red of the light to change to the more welcoming green, a black hearse drove sedately down the street and passed me with nary a pause in its grisly mission. The song on the radio blared the timely, if somewhat ironic, lyric "I've heard it all before/so go do what you like" and I couldn't help but find this turn of events a bit foreboding.
Perhaps it was the heavy blanket of fog enclosing the night, or maybe it was the sheer desolateness of the otherwise empty streets, but the image of that hearse struck a resonant cord. No matter how we live life, we all end up taking that dark journey alone; a solitary stone as the river of life rushes past our exanimate remains.
But does doing whatever we like really change anything? Yes, we've heard it all before. We know what's coming but does that truly make us live life any differently? Most of us get up every morning and brush our teeth regardless of the fact that in a matter of years or days or weeks, it won't matter if we even have teeth. Death may be a fact of life but that doesn't stop life from being lived, even on such a mundane level as tooth brushing.
