in the park

sitting there today in the morning on the green bench near the old gnarled leafless tree, with the rather mild sunshine and the crazy cold wind playing tag, the heaps of mud from the digging, people walking to and fro, the squirrel...not a cloud in the sky...I realized what I should have.
there are no answers, atleast not the kind i'm looking for. all the tomes and papers and opinions of the exalted (spiritual, scientific, philosophical) mean nothing. they are just words in the end. nobody knows. it's a farce if you look at it but that's what it is and will be. looking within might give me strength cos looking without sure hasnt. the finality of it all is amazing and stupefying. but that's how its meant to be. we come and then we go, we become memories, photographs, emails, some remnants, anecdotes. we leave and there is nothing. just that...nothing.
foolish to hope for more, for any afterlife, any connection - paranormal, supernatural blah blah. it's all in the mind, in this other thing that's called our consciousness which gets switched off once the body is brought to nought. that is the truth.
I look at nature, at its humblest and its grandest specimens and I derive strength as I have for long. they go on, self-sufficient, with their many losses and yet hurrying through the cycle themselves, with the flow, doing what they do till they can do it. Nature, the cosmic power, that we think drives the show is indifferent, detached and ruthless. no miracles, no acts of faith, just random quirks or deviations from the norm. its us petulant humans that try and read between the lines, the acts, the words, the idols and that which we call faith.
yes, hope is and will always be immensely vital for the existence of my species, more so than the native primal survival instinct all living beings are armed with. it can stretch absurdly to self-delusion, false promises...

I realized something and I got a cold hard strength from it, but not even a morsel of comfort. the randomness, the indifference, the farcical nature of this whole show, the drama and yet the matter-of-factness. cold clinical awesome awful unfathomable pluses and minuses. one by one.

all there is, is this lifetime, this tenure to do and feel and collect and connect all we can. its easy to realize and say, I shouldnt take life and the ones in it for granted but after a pause, I will continue to do so...that's how it is.

Carpe diem before the curtains come down, once and for all.