I didn’t ask to come into this world,
or at least I have no memory of asking.
My birth is alarming,
an obstruction to my eternal
(or at least 13.8 billion years)
of non-existence.
All that time,
aeons and aeons and aeons,
of non-existence.
And then, poof, here I am.
I don’t see any hands up,
so I will take responsibility
for my existence,
for this life of mine.
I see that I am here for a purpose,
or at least I am assigned a purpose when I am small,
just like all of the other people
who suddenly pop up, perplexed,
from non-existence into existence.
Strange, isn’t it,
people popping into and out of existence,
everyday, like magic?
Poof, poof, poof.
We are all assigned duties and responsibilities
when we are young,
to follow cultural norms,
to create,
to contribute,
to care for others,
even to have fun.
And these duties and responsibilities
are reinforced nearly every day
throughout our long short lives.
Our responsibilities may be grand
or they may be small.
But we are expected to carry out all
that are required to be a citizen of existence.
And when it is time,
when all of my duties have been deemed
to have been carried out to the satisfaction,
or disappointment,
of an arbitrary decision-maker,
I shall return to that non-existence,
even while existence carries on without me,
my life merely a meaningful
(or non-meaningful)
little wrinkle in an eternity of
non-existence.
