To Die For

Death. The one thing fools fear beyond all other things. Yet, a great many people seem to contemplate suicide. I don't understand you, I can't relate, but I can smell fear in that thought the way a lion would smell it on a zebra.

You don't matter. The world won't change when you die. You don't matter.

That's what you're afraid of, isn't it? That when you die, you'll look back, and realize that nothing changed because you lived. What do you expect? You're one of six billion rain drops falling towards its destiny, and when you land in the stormy seas of history, there will be a single brief plop!, the slightest of splashes, and a ripple soon lost.

I will bring to your attention, though, a battle. Thermopylae. This is a place where three hundred men held at bay at least forty thousand soldiers, and saved Ancient Greece. If they had not, there would be no works of the philosophers, no Archimedes to build the foundation for our science, no Pythagorus to set the stage for our geometry, no Rome, no Roman Empire. In all likelihood, there would be no Western European Civilization, no Christianity, no Islam, no Napoleon, no America. By their deaths, three hundred men effectively chose between two very different futures for this world, against what would have seemed to be impossible odds, and ensured their people a place among the great, secured their own place in history.

Every action you take, every action you don't take, each has the potential to change the path of this world beyond all recognition. You don't matter, no, but you could. Stop letting fear rule your life, put aside the trappings of the meaningless societies you cling to, and if you want to die, then set out to give your life for the cause you see most worthy, and there is this infinitely small chance you'll matter somehow--throw it away, and you haven't even got that.