Why Is Tragedy The Best Inspiration?

How do you know you're a terrible excuse for a human being?

It's easy. It's something that happens to you when you witness a head on collision in the lane you just switched out of. You're not a terrible human being until you realize you switched into the lane that might have saved your life, but also completely prevented you from saving the lives of others.

You're now in the middle lane, surrounded by an abandoned idle car of a sprinting hero on one side, and the damaged metal on the other. You have a choice: get out and help and leave zero lanes for traffic flow in rush hour, or avoid causing massive gridlock and drive on, leaving a path for emergency vehicles to get through. Be a burdening savior or be an awful but useful person. Take your pick.

Which one makes you feel worse?

I felt useless by being useful. I drove on. I wonder if they were okay.

Just when you think you're the one having a bad day.

Maybe it's sentimental, but I appreciated the few good things that happened that day a little bit more. I may have shed a tear or two of thankfulness for still being able to appreciate.

Thirty minutes later, I finally got to class, unaware that it was spring break for the college my class is at. But I got there in an unharmed car. For some reason, that was okay.

I now had an extra two hours to spare. I had a choice: go home, or spend some time living a little.

Which one makes life worth it?

Only 300 Miles To Go

It's a rainy day on the rural highways of nowhere, Arkansas, and the biggest thing I can see in the distance is a water tower, smaller than a thimble at arm's length.

In reality, one bad tornado has the capability of destroying everything and everyone that water tower tends to. If there were no paved roadways around here, that kind of tragedy could go unnoticed for awhile. Mother Nature wouldn't phone the families; she never really intended to be a mother in the first place. Her children were the ones that called themselves children and put a meaning to the concept of love and family. Grandmother Earth cares even less; she'll be here no matter what her daughter destroys or what her descendants pollute the air with. If anything, she's given up on them for being suicidal. They're just killing themselves at this point. Let them.

So maybe there's no meaning to life. Maybe whatever we do only works toward creating something we can be proud of, to impress ourselves with what we've managed to make out of nothing. The universe didn't start with biology, and biology won't be its end.

The world didn't start with you in it, and you won't be its demise.

Make your uselessness worth it.