Life and Death.

          It's time that we start celebrating, the celebration of life.

          Earlier this week, I had the honor to attend the funeral for my best friend's grandfather. It was a beautiful service and it's actually the second funeral I've ever attended. The first funeral I've ever been at was a few years ago for my grandfather who passed away because of lung cancer. It was a Taiwanese tradition funeral, and I did not understand much of it. But I remembered that it emphasized much on sadness and grieving. And this one, here in Canada, it's happy, it's about the lovely memories of the deceased, and it's about celebrating one's lifetime. I was mesmerized with the message and idea of this way of arranging a funeral. It's simply beautiful and inspiring to me. Of course, it's still sad and unfortunate, yet this way of handling death is much much more healthy for the living, for us.

           Believe it or not, I've never really been thinking about death up until recently. I've always been more of a life thinker. It's not that I'm not afraid of death, it's just that I've always been an over-thinker on life. I simply have no time to worry about death. I have to admit, I have had times where I wonder what death is like and the topic of afterlife. But it was only brought up in the sense of religion. Now, with my transition on becoming a more logical and rational being, I think it's important that we as human beings think about these thoughts, think about life, and death.

          We talk about life a lot, and we question about the purpose and meaning of life almost too often. Yet thinking about life sometimes just isn't enough, we need to start looking into the philosophy of our existence and question the way humans are living, and not just how life events are happening. And with the understanding of death, we can become more aware, more appreciative, and more decisive of our life. With the knowledge of death and suffering, we often will find ourselves in the state of melancholy. It's a simple feeling of sadness, that's calm and subtle. It's a more realistic way of looking at life, acknowledging the suffering of those who are more unfortunate and who deserves more. It's a way to understand that the world needs to change for the better, and I would say that this is the very first step to make a difference as a human being. It's to acknowledge, and to realize a problem.

          I've decided not to think about what happens after death. Because to me, that's a never-ending debate that there's really no point. As much as I love philosophy, sometimes I want and need answers. Now, I acknowledge death, and I am afraid. But the real answer to that fear is the way how we live. So I'm going to focus on life, I want to live my days as fulfilling as possible. I will love, I will learn, I will laugh, I will dream, and I'll live.

          That, is the first step towards the answers of Life, and also my first step to conquer the mystery of Death.