Close your eyes if you will, and picture a dull life,
One of dreary suburbia and languid vocations
Where deadlines and doctorates dictate every decision you make
And the words, “I need these filed by Sunday night” take place in lieu of the traditional “Hi how are you today?”
Where conversation is a time constraint on the ever quickening conveyor belt of the monotonous production line we have come to call life
You go home to bed and close your eyes, thinking, “Gee, life really sucks right now.”
You close your eyes, expecting to wake up tomorrow, yet halfway across the world, someone closed their eyes for the last time
Every minute, every single minute we close our eyes 15-20 times, with each of those lasting a mere tenth of a second
It is in that tenth of a second where our eyes are closed, that life truly pronounces it
Closed are the eyes of the poor city boy, who after the loud crack of .45 pistol finds his own father crumpled on the cracked pavement, victim of a vicious vendetta
Closed are the eyes of the mother of four, the word “terminal” not registering in her mind as the doctor reads her the diagnosis in his stoic voice
Closed are the eyes of the young teenage boy, too intoxicated on prescription painkillers and cheap alcohol to notice his steady progression towards a life of suffering with a side of Vehicular manslaughter
Closed are the eyes of the high school girl, too distraught with troubles at home to notice the verbal lashes being hurled at her in a cacophony of sneers and boisterous laughter
Closed are the eyes of the poor boy as he puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth to silence the pain of a lifetime of being called worthless and unwanted
Within the blink of an eye, life can change from a boring travail to hopeless purgatory
You ask yourself, “ why should I go on?”, echoing the same existential question that has been repeated through centuries by a dying organism trying to find a desperate meaning for its existence in a world it will never truly understand
Life looks bleak, and the future looks limited, so you think to yourself, “why not close my eyes for good?”
But what we must realize is that for every moment our eyes are shut from pain and sadness, so too are they closed for times of happiness and joy
Closed are the eyes of the proud father, who after just having walked into the sterile white hospital room notices a small bundle of writhing blankets, in which lies his greatest and most beautiful creation
Closed are the eyes of the young woman, throwing up her hat in the air as she firmly grasps a fresh diploma, ready to go out and make her mark on the world
Closed are the eyes of the brave soldier, who after months of enduring harrowing combat and the raw stench of death, is finally able to kiss the sweet soil of his beloved country
Closed are the eyes of the young girl as she takes her first steps after three years of physical therapy, her small toes digging into the earth as she experiences its warm and grasping embrace
Life is not about just closing your eyes to shield yourself from pain it’s also about taking a moment to close them in prayer and thank God for everything you have been given
It does not matter if your life is a somber tale of sadness and suffering or if you are living an existence of ecstatic elated ecstasy
Life is but a mere blink away from turning the tables on us as
We are tumbling endlessly on a Roulette wheel, with life tossing and turning us in every direction with the utmost disregard for our Intentions
And sometimes a #YOLO or Carpe Diem are not enough to get you going sometimes you need someone to tell you GET THE HELL OF YOUR ASS AND LIVE FOR GODS SAKE
LIVE AS IF YOU ARE FRANKENSTEINS MONSTER EXPERIENCING THE FIRST JOLT OF ELECTRICITY, NOT KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE GOING AND DESPITE THE FACT THAT YOU WERE BORN A MONSTER, LIVING LIFE TO ITS FULLEST, ONLY CLOSING YOUR EYES WHEN YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR UNTIMELY DEMISE
We are in this crazy life without any direction, and for our entire existence we have asked ourselves “WHY-ARE-WE-HERE” thinking ourselves crazy only to realize that by questioning the very existence of our species we must be sane, creating a an infinite Catch -22
We come to accept the fact that we can’t control anything, realizing that life is constantly moving us along
So next time you hear someone say, “I’m bored”, “or “I’m not feeling it today” Tell them to close their eyes
We close our eyes so that when we open them we may look upon our world with a fresh lens, ready to take on whatever is being thrown at us, ready to look upon the world with a fresh face, regardless of what we are going through
We close our eyes
So with that ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to close your eyes.
Now open them, and ask yourself, “Have I lived today?”