The Mortal Tragedy

I'm not entirely sure if being mortal is a good or a bad thing yet.  Eventually, like vampires, you would probably lose all humanity, witnessing everyone you once knew and loved dying, disappearing, never to be seen again.  I imagine that it will break anyone, make anyone impervious to death, but isn't the fact that we are mortal make life so unbelievably amazing?

The tragedy in life isn't that we are mortal, it isn't that we will eventually die, it is that we only have so much time.  If you want to learn everything you can, explore everything you can.  You could spend your entire life traveling and still never experience what it's like to live somewhere else, you couldn't take in all the culture, get to know every single person.  So we have to pick and choose, and that's the tragedy.  I chose writing, and have continued to do so.  While pursuing this career path, I am at a job that isn't bad, but it isn't the promised land for me.  And even if I do become a successful author, I still will never experience being a zoologist, a researcher, a marine biologist, rehabilitating lions for reintroduction into the wild, working to save the panda population.  The whole other side of my brain, the one that wants to save the world, has gotten thrown to the side while I march forward, pen and paper in hand, probably destroying the environment more with ink and paper usage than helping it.

So here I sit, looking at a photo I took of an orangutan, and the soft reflection of my forehead appearing in the bottom right corner.  I titled it, "Reflection of a Human."  And it really is human.  Eyes looking up at the sky wondering, nose wrinkled while he chews, all the lines going across his face.  I live vicariously through Animal Planet and other television shows all of the lives I could lead.  I realize I am still young, but even if I do end up getting a degree in Environmental Science, I wouldn't know what to do with it.  If anything, I'm probably safer to spend my time volunteering, especially if I can become a published author.  That way, I can learn on the job, pour my money into some non-profit, and continue writing.

It's the mortal tragedy.