Inspired by Africa and Rent

What is life? Why is life?

Should we really live as if each day were our last, or should we keep hopes, aspirations, and dreams alive? Life is impossible to know. To really know. As I am here, growing, learning, and hopefully living, others are not. They stay shelled. But am I really living? Are you?

Life is more than the sum of its parts or a collection of events that happen to us. Life is bigger than pumping organs that provide us with biological sustenance. It is how we think, how we move, where we dance, who we laugh with, and what we appreciate. It is an outlook. It’s not about stuff, it’s not about popularity. It’s about love and ever-growing knowledge.

We can’t live life waiting. That’s the true definition of slowing dying. Waiting. For the next disaster, for the next windfall. For the next heartbreak. That’s death. You don’t have to live like that, or you’ll die like that. You can see the good in life, the people that you love, that love you. You can open your heart and mind to living.

I know you have the capability to truly live, but something is holding you back. You don’t have to be a victim. You are a survivor, through and through, and you have every right to feel like one. Why waste a survivor’s strength on fear? On doubt, or on regret? Where will those things really get you in the end? Where will they lead you? To longer life? To happiness? No. Quite the opposite. But you can choose something else for yourself. You can decide to live despite the fear, and the shitty cards that you were dealt. I see people here in the streets outside their tin shanty homes, wearing worn and ripped clothing, not knowing where their next meal will come from, with the most astonishing peace in their hearts and on their faces. I am both ashamed and jealous of their tranquility in the face of could-be death. To love the earth, the very soil we so often dismiss as dirt, is something they wake each day to do. I wish you could see how much joy true life brings to these people who have let go of the search for things and for pity. It’s the most inspiring thing I’ve ever encountered.

And we have the ability to follow in their footsteps. You can live with peace instead of fear.

I didn’t start writing this with you in mind, but sitting here, watching the words flow from my heart, I know that they are meant for you. I love you, and I know it’s hard to truly open your mind to these words, but I promise that if you do, you will see.

You will see. And you will love.