We Are the Coup

To overcome oneself is what the good philosophers understand as the greatest trial. Life is not made for understanding, but for growing through.

Death is not an end, but it is certainly not what everyone makes it out to be. People gather to console themselves, not the deceased. There is no story for them, and that is why there is no end. The living's memories are the only anchor for them at that point. And yet, I am told to put my faith in the church; to vacillate to a different rhythm than my own. Any discordance is viewed as negative, as tertiary and as misguided. But my own sense is more profound than crutches or displacement and dissonance.

I have seen death, and I have seen the dead. I have mourned for both the dead and death itself in the same way: through recognition. Anything else is deception and self-loathing. And that is why I was never really a Catholic.

What we do here is all the more important when you realize that there is no end to the story, because the story itself ceases. There is no transcendence, because movement is finished at that point. It is an abrupt end to a steady line. There is no point at its apex.

And as empty as that sounds philosophically, it brings me much more wealth than the fantasy of seeing those people ever again. They are gone. Period.

And that is the rest that they rightfully deserve. They are in a better place, because they are not here anymore, not because they have gone to travel the stars or another realm.