How To Cope With The Horror of Being Human

(TENTATIVE ALTERNATE TITLE: Would you like to feel less scared and helpless when faced with the extraordinary responsibility of action, motive, and consequence given to you as a human being ?)

It starts with remembering that God can't save you, and the devil can't save you, and the vacuum (Hallow be thy name) can't save you.

It starts with remembering that after you die there's a diamond waiting to be compressed in your throat and there's a bonsai tree to be made out of your limbs.

It starts with remembering that you were once your father's bonemeal and one of your mother's 300,000 eggs that have been waiting since puberty to unfurl into you: A walking existential disaster fueled on blood, sugar-free red bull, peanut butter, boiled eggs, pur-eh tea, a dream lodged in the spine that won't die.

It starts with remembering that your "No" is a weapon and your "Yes" is an even more powerful one - and that some other people, however aware they are of the danger of this weapon, understand its power subconsciously. They will do everything they can to try to convince you that you have no power of will. The few rare good ones will nurture your power, coax it out of its infancy where it's been laying prone and blue as a corpse, feed it on that honeyed taste of the thing called self-will. Find those people.They are the only ones that matter.

It starts with remembering that the earth hurtling through space will not wait for you to decide: Whether it's what you want to do with the rest of your life, or whether you want to eat peanut butter, or eggs for breakfast. Time continues to shuttle forward despite your indecision, so it's best to decide before temporal space decides for you.

It starts with realizing you have nothing except what you have in each singular moment, and nothing is so special that it will last forever.

It starts with opening your hand and getting used to the feeling of emptiness on your palms.

It starts with remembering that more than a body, and a name, and a profession, and what kind of car you drive, you are a consciousness that drives a will.

It starts with remembering there are things that cannot be taken from you, and those things are the most important to cultivate.

It starts with a breath that decides.

It starts now.