The passage of time is completely meaningless if not placed within a context of movement. The movements of the planets, the movement and growth of living beings, even the falling of a leaf are all ways by which to mark the passage of time. Without those measurements, without birth, growth, death, and decay, time means nothing. It is a force much like wind through the void, touching nothing, moving nothing, achieving nothing, meaning nothing.

Human life is likewise nothing without context. If we live, grow, and die without any influence upon our surroundings, our existence is naught, and we might as well be cast off upon the ethereal winds of time to be lost forever to all memory. Without action – without pushing in some way on reality and making it yield, creating ripples as if in a pond – our existence means nothing.

We are born to shape this universe, to leave a mark, however big or small that may be. Failing to do so is failing at existence itself, which could be considered the ultimate failure. One fails to be. As such, it is imperative that you do something to shape your environment. Many people opt to improve their surroundings, while others end up destroying them, though that may often be done more incidentally than intentionally.

Whether an incidental impact is necessarily better than leaving no impact at all is a matter that may warrant some amount of debate, but is it really our place to say that one who only shapes their environment by accident might as well have not existed at all? That would surely be a bit pretentious on our part, though it is likely true that intentionally leaving your mark is better than accidentally leaving it, because you get to choose what mark you leave. You enforce your existence in a mindful and purposeful manner.

The point of all this is to say that punching someone in the face really isn’t the worst thing you can do, in the grand sceme of things.

The Astral Wanderer is brought to you by my will to exist. Enforce your own existence by liking this post, commenting, or sharing it with your friends. Failing to do so is a small (and admittedly inconsequential) forfeiture of the impact you might have on reality. Really.