They say that it is when you are closest to death that you feel most alive, and to that I'd be the first to argue. To follow my personal philosophy - as little there may be of it - is thinking that you only feel alive when you finally succeed. When you finally change something to your benefit.
That may like feel empty words, useless motivation without context. Something that kicks a feeble, suffering body to keep it working one more day. I always hated that kind of motivation, I found it a sugar-coated evil. I know what it's like to be almost dead though, in more ways than anyone should, and I'll tell you what's empty.
Suffering builds character, that's what they'll tell you. A stepping stone for success, that's their lesson. They'll drill it through the already existing cracks in your skull to keep you complacent. It’s bullshit.
I've been at the hands of death many times. Many of them was because I had overworked myself, literally about to collapse under my own body weight. I did not feel alive. I felt useless, defeated. Letting down my family, my community, and the son of a bitch that stepped on my back, pushing me further into the dirt. How insane is that? Me, at my darkest hour, feeling sorry for the person who put me there.
Suffering does not build character, it kicks open wounds, in both your body and your spirit. Wounds that do not scab and scar fast enough, and the ones that do get reopened in a fraction of the time it took to heal. Injuries take your energy, no matter where they are, and they take hope. Suffering drains away the soul until there is nothing left but a husk of a person, keeling over and begging for it all to stop.
That is not what it means to be alive.
Another time I almost died was at the edge of a sword. Staring down someone who thought of me as lesser, despite me towering far above them. Someone with such hate in his eyes, such arrogance. I did not feel alive in that moment, but I also was not overcome with hopelessness as I had become so familiar with.
In that moment, it was only rage. Like a pot of soup boiling over after being left unattended for what feels like eons, a lifetime of scars wanted revenge.
I remember that man's name: Alek Makikari. I killed him that day.
Many people will tell you it was planned, and I wish it was. Planned, charismatic, inspiring, that's what it could've been. Spontaneous, barbaric, striking, that's what it was. A screech, a strike of an axe, and the impact of a head rolling to the ground. That's all it was, all it ever meant to be.
I say this, and yet as I held what remained of that man by the hair and yelled for all the stars and sky to hear, that's when I felt alive. For the first time in 24 years, did I live. Even in the next 5 years as I fought tirelessly against a foe that seemed more akin to a cruel god, I was alive.
It's not because I was bloodthirsty, nor even because I longed for revenge. It's because I was finally changing something.
To lessen the suffering of whoever comes after you, to enjoy light whether or not you come from darkness, to succeed in any endeavor, any at all, that is what it means to be alive.
Suffering and darkness is not something to glorify, to hold in a rose colored capsule as an ideal for the righteous man. I’ve come from suffering, the darkness my world gave to me will live on as scars forever. Life, and in turn happiness, should not be something one has to earn. Not anymore, not as long as my memory walks the plainlands. I've made good work in making sure that it never does either.
For as long as there are people who stand against me and the country that I love, there will be a cavern for my name to echo for the rest of time.
