Health is a transient aspect of life. All people have any number of health issues unknown to everybody else around them. The fact that these issues can’t be seen makes all the difference. When one is sick, it seems as if the whole world is feeling great but us.
But that’s because people don’t walk around with bullhorns announcing pains from past injuries or carrying cards detailing ailments they suffer. Because we’re not other people, we can’t feel what their bodies and minds are like. It’s really quite a good thing that people don’t go around shouting such things all day. Wherever there were people, there’d be endless agony in the air.
On top of the personal problems that people have, we also all seem to be in a constant war against gravity, against a force always pressing our skeletons down to the earth. Coupled with the sun hitting us, it starts to become clear that it’s not so much the passing of time that gets us in the end, but the actual components that make up the universe running their course. We’re all walking sets of chemical creations and reactions, decaying slowly back into the atomic mix.
Though I’m struck by how utterly depressing this all sounds, it’s really just the nature of what we are. There’s something very scary about that and also something truly amazing. It’s better if it’s all just amazing. Otherwise, every day is another tragedy, and personally, I want to walk around and only hear bodies laughing.
Microfiction
