Mortality.
It's one of those heavy words which people try to squirm around using euphemisms and flowery junk philosophy. The fact of the matter is that while some organisms on this Earth are in fact immortal, humans are not among them. This means that from the moment we're born, we live in the knowledge that gradually our body's capacity to function will degrade until eventually systematic organ failure or similar will take out the entire system which composes each of our bodies at which point our existence will cease.
Considering that the average human in Western Europe lives into their 70s, that means that when you approach the age of 40, you have practically lived half of your allotted lifespan already. It's a sobering thought in many ways. When I look at what I have accomplished and lived through during the past three decades, I can see that while I have more experienced in those three decades than many humans ever will, most of that time has been spent on just being confused and uncertain about how to define this body of mine and how to define my 'self'.
As a child I first realized just how fleeting my own existence is because of my mortality. I could see my existence flare up and be extinguished again like a brief, single point of light in this massive universe. It was the accompanying feeling which drove me to reconsider and look at what I really wanted to accomplish in this minute lifespan that I would likely be able to live through. The only thing which made sense to me in light of this overwhelming feeling was to simply learn everything there is to learn about the universe and everything in it.
The fact of the matter is that to every important question involving this universe I can only simply answer with 'I don't know yet'. The way I thus learned to define the point of existence was to first realize that in order to answer something, one must understand the matter the question applies to. One cannot answer the truly important questions in life before knowing and understanding everything there is to know about the universe.
Naturally, this realization led me back to the issue of the so very brief human lifespan. Roughly 70 years, of which at least twenty will be wasted away on account of being a child followed by the stringent requirements and assumptions of society. Assuming one stays in good health until the end of one's life, that leaves maybe fifty years. I lost one entire decade already because I tried to find answers to the questions about my body and self, for which offence I was severely punished. That's forty years, give or take, which are left to me to accomplish the first step in truly beginning to learn about the universe: this being the matter of expanding my natural lifespan, if not accomplish immortality.
Next to this I have to also face that I do not have answered the questions about what this body is exactly, with the conclusion of it being a hermaphroditic body being heavily contested by virtually every single physician and psychologist in the Netherlands. While I would like to know the answer and find closure, if only to stop the constant harassment from physicians and the like, I have to admit that after wasting a decade of my life on the matter, I may have to just look ahead and realize that in probably a few decades I'll either be dead or have shed this biological form for something else, at which point the question of what this body is no longer matters beyond as an unpleasant memory.
Maybe it's better for me to use this loathing I feel towards this body of mine as an incentive to quickly reach the stage where I can abandon it. At any rate I'll not be sorry to slip out of this shell into something without negative connotations. Something which I can actually control instead of it being controlled by others. The core of the issue is that being human and part of human society isn't helping me in any way. I get no support when I want to get answers to these questions about what and who I am, instead I'm brainwashed into believing lies about myself. In other ways I do not fit in either.
I have had people get angry at me for admitting that I'm seeking to become immortal. They condemn it as being 'unnatural' and 'disrupting the natural balance'. Even though I can so clearly see how everything should fit together and explain to myself why it is the right way, I cannot explain it to others. Just another item to add to the bitterness I feel towards humans and humanity in general, I guess. They do not wish to see. They cannot see. They are blind. Only those who realize the questions can seek for the answers and learn to see in order to find them.
I do not care whether people laugh at me, call me crazy, dismiss my thoughts as childish fantasies or prize my 'lively imagination' (meaning to say 'you should grow up already'). I know what I have seen and experienced. Me trying to find answers to what this body is and how to define my body and myself in human terms was an attempt by me to try and fit into human society. Clearly this has failed and I will live as a hermit for as long as I remain a human being. Considering my long-term goals, this can be seen as acceptable.
I would have liked that if I do transcend from a human body into something less frail, that I could look back upon this first stage of my existence as something not so utterly negative and hateful, though. So far humanity has sadly proven to be an utter and complete disappointment in every sense of the word.
Maya
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