An Awfully Big Adventure

"To die would be an awfully big adventure," this perhaps one of the most famous quotes from J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan". "To die would be an awfully big adventure." To die really would be an awfully big adventure. What happens? No one knows. That's just it. There are speculations, beliefs, and philosophies dedicated to life and death, life after death, or the lack there of. But you can not be one hundred percently sure until you yourself have experienced death, of course from which there is no return (unless of course you believe in miracles).

Life is so short. What defines life? What is life, everyone breathes... but animals breathe, plants breathe, and yet we are significantly superior to such beings. God put us in charge of other creation. Humans. Humans have existed for thousands of years; each one living, breathing, and eventually, dying. Theories, and ideas, cultures, religion. So much remains the same, but the world is constantly changing. Human culture no matter where you are in the world is obvious different from a thousand years ago, even a hundred years ago. There is nothing new under the sun- well, except everyday.

Death obviously is not a new concept or happening. Our lives are but a vapor in the wind so to speak. What if people did not die? How would life be then? Would it mean anything? Everyone lives such vastly different lives from each other. Sometimes, people do not have the opportunity in life to make something for themselves, as their parents farm, they too one day will grow up to be farmers. Other people have countless opportunities in any field they chose, to steer life down many different roads. The apple does not have to fall far from the tree, true, but at least they have the chance to leave. How do you measure life? People spend years, well generally a whole life time building up a name for themselves, but death eventually comes and suddenly one day all is forgotten. Who they were, what they did, gone. So what about those people who did not have that same chance to make a name for themselves? How is their life counted? Is it less significant? What about POW or other people who had their lives destroyed right in front of them. Everything they had known, taken away from them. They were left to decay starting with their material lives. Their lives were taken away from them, but was their life?

It's an odd thing really. Knowing one day we all shall die, in one way or another. As J.M. Barrie puts it in the beginning of his book, "Peter Pan", "All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end." From a young age, we strive to grow up. Our games revolve around being grown up, and that's all we ever want to be, is a little bit older.

"Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows."

— john betjeman

I think there is something beautiful about children; their ability to live completely in the moment, sometimes something inside me hurts knowing there's no going back simply because I know more then I use to. But perhaps that's what life and death is; an awfully big adventure. It is full of enchantment, and wonder, of baddies, and stormy days, with time always against you, chasing you until it finally catches up because your young legs that once carried you so fast you flew with the wind have turned into a wheel chair waiting for someone to push you.

You best be off on your way, off on another grand adventure, instead of reading my mind vomit on a page.

- Hannah