What is life?
That which we breathe? Or does it encompass the tapestry of experiences, choices, and meanings we weave from inception up until death?
Is life defined by how long it is you live, or by how you live it?
Having gone through numerous monologues of how it is I am who I am, and not someone else, I am yet to find a definite answer.
Even without finding the answer to these questions, I find myself drawing further follow-up questions.
What is the meaning of one's life?
To be born, to live, and, in the end, meet your inevitable end, or is there a much deeper meaning to it all?
What is one's purpose in life?
To live your life in a way that ensures you are remembered, or to live life in a way that pleases you the most?
Maybe I am missing something here. Do people still exist somewhere after death, or do they completely cease to be?
I am far from being a religious person, but maybe the religious people have it easier than I do.
They, at least, have found their purpose in life and answers to all these questions or are on a wonderful journey to discovering them.
The biggest struggle in my sixteen years of life has always been to find a clear goal or something to motivate me, largely because of how easy it has been to do anything for me.
It all came naturally to me: studies, sport, people, and living as others expected me to. But it all felt so... Empty.
And now, with my consciousness stuck in this limbo, this constant state of idleness, the questions ring louder, more than ever.
I can't move, I haven't been able to for a very long time. Time to me had become a concept, immeasurable.
The last thing I remember is a cataclysmic explosion, and everything went dark. I have been here, wherever I am, ever since then.
It feels like I am lying down, still, motionless, idle, just me and my thoughts. In a dark, endless abyss.
Am I lying down though?
You see, the problem is, I can't 'feel' anything, all I have is my thoughts, in a non-existent body, like I have lost all of my senses.
Honestly, it feels like I have been here for more than an eternity, definitely more than I can describe, more than I have lived my life prior to this ordeal.
Maybe I am dead?
The thought echoed for the umpteenth time. And the more time that passes, the more I am convinced of it.
Is this what death feels like?
A new question popped up in my head. Maybe then, it would all make sense.
Time passed...
Sometimes, I would imagine my hands in front of me, as if I were staring at my palms, and then I would grasp onto an invisible string, pull on it, and then I would try to imagine myself waking up.
But then, I always come up empty. The hands vanish, and I find myself staring at the darkness once again.
Sigh.
More time passed...
Am I going to be here forever?
The inevitable question rolled off my thoughts like a toxin.
The thought genuinely scared me, I did not want to accept the implications of that conclusion.
That would be terrifying...
As soon as the thought registered, what if that is it? I found myself shivering. I felt cold, down to the core of my soul, in the middle of this dark, empty place.
I found myself growing restless. It was odd. Surely, considering it felt like I had been in this abyss for eternity, I should have grown used to it by now.
But that was it. Surprisingly, I found myself longing for a little bit of warmth, a little bit of something to hold on to, to feel something.
But I just felt like a consciousness with no body.
I screamed to myself, or I thought I did, for a long while. And not long after, it felt like I was crying, sobbing for a long time.
More time passed...
What followed my breakdown was a complete shutdown. I found myself growing more and more detached with the more time that passed.
Is this what they call acceptance?
I grew unfeeling, empty, and lost to it all. It all felt so, surreal.
More time passed.
At this point, I stopped subconsciously keeping track of the passage of time. It felt so useless now. I was now convinced that this was the end.
There was nothing more to it. I would be stuck in this limbo, for all eternity, and maybe when and if existence comes to an end, so would I.
But, as more time passed, I realised that it was all a delusional thought I fed myself, so that I could feel a moment of reprieve, that once all life was over, this would also come to an end.
But what if this is the end of existence?
And as soon as the thought came, I felt something.
I felt an oppressive feeling of unwillingness well up from the depths of my soul. And it resonated with my very being.
It started off like a silent whisper.
No
No
No!
No!!!
I have to get up!
I began screaming in my head.
I began to urge myself to get up. More than ever, from the depths of everything I have ever been and am.
I want to get up!
But the response I expected never came.
My body remained completely still. Unmoving, unfeeling, and dissociated from the rest of my being.
Regardless, the unwillingness refused to fade. I kept urging myself to get up. Over, and over, and over, and over again.
More time passed.
I had never stopped screaming in my head.
No!
No!
And like a mantra, it echoed in my head, every second, every moment, every breathe.
And as more time passed, this time, instead of despair, I felt myself grow more unwilling, more eager, wanting to wake up, more than ever.
Because, as more time passed, I realised that I had found my purpose in this dark, lonely, forsaken place.
I want to live!
Someone, or something, had taken that away from me, and I wanted to live. In all the time I had spent alone in this place, I had discovered the purpose of life.
Maybe it was all a moment's desperation, wanting to recover something that had been taken from you, but, at least for now, I was satisfied with just that.
There might come a day when I would regret discovering this drive and will to live, or I might find a bigger, larger purpose for living.
But that is it, because all the better if I do, because now I know, if I never get to live to see what the future holds, I will definitely regret it even more.
In that moment. After what felt like a lifetime. I felt something.
Yes...
It started in my chest. The beating of my heart echoed in the silence, like a war drum, slowly at first, and then louder, faster, powerful.
And then I could feel the blood flowing in my veins, and that opened up the rest of my body, like opening the gates of a drum full of water.
I can feel my limbs!
Not long after, I could feel every part of my body.
I expected to feel happy, overjoyed, even when the break I had been waiting for came. But I did not.
The feeling of relief overwhelmed every other emotion that threatened to spill forth. I just felt relieved.
But what scared me the most was how calm I was. I felt like nothing else mattered, like I didn't care. For as long as I had myself, it would all be fine.
It was scary.
I felt like I had lost a very important part of myself in that dark place.
Now that I could feel, I knew that I was alive, but then came the next problem, I could neither move nor see.
But at least I can breathe and feel. I was clearly lying on my back, face up.
God, I have never been so grateful to be alive.
More time passed...
Now that my sense of feeling had returned, the passage of time became more grating to my mind.
It felt long, very long. The elements assaulted my body and so telling me what time of day it was.
The cold, obviously representing nighttime, and the heat, daytime, that is, unless I was in a very unusual desert that did not have extremely varying highs and lows for temperature.
I was heavily inclined to believe I was in an environment that had normal temperature variations for day and night.
More time passed...
Having kept track of the time this time around since I could 'feel', two months had passed and...
One day, as I was simply lying on my back as usual, waiting for some sort of change, I saw a light in my dark vision, soft and subtle at first, and growing brighter every second, until It became constant and unchanging.
My best bet was that I had regained my eyesight, but that was about all I could gather, because I could not move my eyelids. But it was reassuring to know I could still see.
But from this, I concluded that my body was 'waking' up bit by bit, if I could call it that. Which meant, sooner or later, I would be able to move.
Hopefully not organ by organ. Hehe. I thought.
I found my lonely self laughing inwardly at my own joke, 'Organ by organ he says.' A moment later, I thought about how crazy that sounded, regardless, I felt the urge to laugh again.
Great, apart from being trapped in my own conscience for an eternity, I've become a madman.
After another month, my eyelids began to flutter, and that meant I would be able to see soon, and I was proved right later in the day.
I opened my eyes wide, taking note of the bright blue skies above me, well, that was until the bright yellow sun assaulted my eyes.
I scowled, frowning at the sun's attack. 'Oh, I can frown now. That's new. Can I speak.' I tried to move my lips and throat muscles, but moving my lips was about all I managed, that, and a low groan.
So, I closed my eyes so I would not stare directly at the sun. And so, I waited. Surely, I should be able to move soon.
Which reminded me, it doesn't feel like I had any sort of clothing on my person.
Great, now I'm a naked, crazy hermit.
And like that, without even realising it, I began to laugh out loud, genuinely. It sounded dry, primal, and deprived, not that I cared.
That's weird, I can make sounds now, and I can hear.
The next thing I felt was my limbs becoming responsive. The best way to describe the sensation was your cold body gradually becoming warm, from the core, outwards in a radius.
And like that, I found myself trying to get up.