The Well-Lived Life

A life well lived is a quick and subtle snake slithering camouflaged through the cloaking reeds. The ruck of men can glimpse its shed skin eagerly discarded on its unseen path, but they never behold the living skin. They use the old and the dead, the spent past, the lowly and the ugly, to imaginatively puzzle the lively and beauteous artistic second, that vivacious and energetic Now. They are tremulous detectives, and they stand by while others innovate, watching and regretting as impulse evaporates into the regretful realm of vicarious wonder. It's the game of detachment, and the only constant is stagnant death. All you need is a tombstone and a telescope to play.

But you who glimpse the vapid reptile do burn and scream in its pleasantly corrupt venom. And your toxic heat is exothermic; it wells from within in waving rivulets. It spreads outward, and some of you trace its eddying path with joie de vivre engraved on your countenance. You who glimpse the vapid reptile know what feeling is. For pain is the birth of happiness, as all true philosophers know. You who glimpse the vapid reptile: take solace in its lasting immortality for you are part of a whole, an alive face in the flourishing family tree...