such pain we will face. it’s part of the balance with any pleasure we might receive. all of life at one point will be taken away from us, and with this all the things we love and cherish. our youth, our mind and body will decay. in time, all the things we have come to cherish will begin slipping away. we yearn to hold on, for time to stop, but it won’t. this clinging to possessions, feelings and experiences is at the basis of most suffering. a desire for things to be different or stay the same.this is futile.

change continues. the world around us shifts. new weather patterns and pronouns push into us with a force that we cannot ignore…most of the time, fighting back seems futile. any idea of control goes out the window when you really get to thinking most of our choices are made for us. i have as much choice in my choices as the limited presentation of choices i assume to choose from. this time and this place and those around me are on their own journey. i might get to bump into them along the way but in no way do i alter their outcomes, moods or destinations. we only imagine that we might. constraints on the imagination parallel those of reality, but they’re fluffier and more fun. 

its why the good get to die young. death spares them the negative aspects and realities of having it all fall apart. live long enough and everyone you know or have ever cared about will pass before you. the world and body you once knew and loved will have changed while your teeth loosen and bones ache. the relationship between your existential insignificance in the world and your own idea of self intensifies to the point that it no longer matters if you are here anymore. people will step into your place. a moment might go by where some small reference or in some context you might be still recognized, but like the mountains that formed before you, what will be at the end are valleys and streams that wash away all you left behind.

Our emotional life maps our incompleteness

Martha Nussbaum