About an hour ago, I was nearly killed. I was riding home from Starbucks on my Gixxer when some dipshit in the right lane decided to swing into the left lane directly in front of me and then slam on his brakes so he could turn into a parking lot. All without a turn signal. Now, in a car when someone stops short in front of you, you slam on the brakes hard, whatever's in your front seat ends up on the floor, you honk the horn and wave a finger or fist, and that's the end of it. On a motorcycle when you slam on the brakes hard, you fall over onto the ground and slide forward - if you're lucky. Because if you don't slide, then whatever two ton vehicle is behind you will be on top of you in a few seconds. There are no fender benders when motorcycles are involved.
In this case, there was no way I could stop quick enough not to end up in the backseat of the car in front of me, and there was a vehicle in the right lane behind me. My only chance at staying vertical was to swerve around the asshole in front of me as tightly as possible, riding the white lines, and hope the minivan behind me saw what was happening and either slowed down or pulled over to the right a little to give me enough room. Fortunately, a combination of quick reflexes on my part and the driver of the minvan (who I think slowed down) saved my life.
That time.
Typically you assume you can either be alive or you can be dead, a black and white type of affair, but right now I'm alive but just barely.
It all happened so fast my heart rate didn't even change, but still, it got me thinking about mortality. There's so much that we put off until later that we shouldn't. Maybe we don't make that phone call we've wanted to for one reason or another and end up putting off contacting a loved one another day. Or we avoid scheduling that trip because it's too expensive or too much of a hassle. Or we decide not to make that purchase we've been wanting to make. Not much point in doing that, is there, if the person you've been wanting to get back in touch with is going to be in a coffin by the time you get to calling them, or you die before going on that dream vacation, or your money ends up going to the state because you never spent it.
And to complicate things, apparently some scientists in Switzerland have built the world's biggest particle collidor machine in hopes that it will do some really cool shit. But it's causing some other scientists to freak out, because they're afraid it's going to end up doing some really cool shit that, oh, by the way, might also end up destroying the planet. It might, they say, call into existence a mini black hole that will suck all matter into it - all matter in this case being the Earth. Or, a particle called a "Singleton" will be created, which has the incredibly unique property of being able to turn all of the other particles near it into a Singleton, and so on ad infinitum, effectively turning the planet and everything on it into some sort of grey, lifeless lump made up of nothing but Singleton particles.
So even if you don't ride speedbikes through traffic yourself, you've got the mortality of the entire human race at a precarious balance whether you know it or not.
Kind of makes you feel foolish for lounging around the house in your sweatpants all weekend, doesn't it?
There are no guarantees of anything except that nothing is permanent. So I guess enjoy what you have in front of you before it goes away, and hang on to things you love - while they are there.
I live life hard. If I can, I buy myself the toys I want to buy when I want to buy them, and worry only marginally about retirement. This year I've already crossed 4 things off of my list of things to do before I die, and plan to get to at least 4 more before the year's out. I spend as much time as I can with people I want to be with, and try to limit the time spent with people whose presence makes me feel as though I'm losing blood. I've never played games with people - I wear my emotions on my sleeve - and I love and laugh as hard as anyone. When I see something I want, I go after it. I'm honest to a fault, and it often bites me in the ass, because I guess people find it hard to believe that I'm being genuine. But I'm not going to stop, because I don't have time for subtlety - this is who I am.
I don't want to have any major regrets as my life flashes before my eyes in the final milliseconds before I hit that big fluffy racetrack in the sky. We all do things we wish we had done differently, but at least that's action - I don't want to look back and wish I had done something when I chose to do nothing. When my life is flashing before my eyes as the last pulses of electricity pump through the synapses in my brain, I don't want to be wishing something had gone differently if only I had done more to prevent it from going the way it did, or regret that I hadn't been able to let myself open up to someone I loved, or wish that I had decided to get up and go instead of sit around and wait. I want those last seconds to be happy ones, content ones, looking back on my life and loves, glad that I had been open, and honest, and true. Glad that I didn't hold back.
