Existence is a fight to the death

And you are already dead if give up even an ounce of ground to Fate

The cold is a bitter reminder of death.

Frozen wind steals your comfort, the chill slows your blood, and the crops are withered away by frost. The natural state of the cosmos is mostly a heatless, dark, emptiness. Cold, and the veiled threat of death that it signals, is a practice round for waits for us in the grave.

I hate the cold.

I detest the death of every year, the annual reset blanketed in snow and greyness, yet I will not go gently into that good night. I cannot control the weather, but I refuse to let Old Man Winter steal away what I am owed. Life is my birthright. Vitality is my weapon. I will not give up what is mine without a fight.

The fight will never occur on your chosen battlefield

Geographically, the cold is an inevitability for me. Living in Boulder, Colorado, next to a mountain and 30 minutes from a ski resort, mounds of snow will find their way to my doorstep. There will be no avoiding what I so vehemently dislike, and every day draws me nearer. This gives me a very clear decision:

Live with resentment and bitterness brought on by the situation that I consciously put myself in, or adapt.

I cannot shift the weather around me to adapt the environment, so I am left only with adaptation of myself. Adaptation beyond warmer clothes and higher heating bills, which only serve to create a bubble of comfort, a hopeful boundary of heat that can to easily be crossed. No, that is not enough. I will adapt myself completely.

I will learn to love the cold.

It’s common to feel that the universe has chosen us to suffer, as if our current state was nothing but a jail sentence to pay for the sins of a past life. Which may be true, that I don’t know. But I do know that the guy who comes after me in the reincarnation cycle is going to have real hell to pay, because I refuse to take what the universe offers without trying to bite its fingers.

You are both the author and the actor of your story, and to be anything less is a premature death. To not take action is to let the game continue on autopilot while you idly sit there and watch. To manifest a rich, full existence, you must be in control.

I have chosen every step on the path that has led me to Boulder, and every result is mine to own. Thus, my next step could easily be one of frustration and impatience as I try to rush the sands of time through my existential hourglass, ticking down days until things are ‘good’ again in the spring. Or I can have good right now, this very second, and every day of winter.

As I bike to work in 25-degree weather, I will relish in the pain throbbing in my hands as the wind cuts over my tight grip on the handlebars, forming cracks in my knuckles. I choose to see it as myself shedding blood for my choices, with deep gratitude for the freedom and autonomy to have made them. Choice is life. Those tingling needles in my frozen fists are a physical offering to the altar of a moment in time. Of a time when I am 33 years old, building a company, physically active enough to bike over hills, and in a space where I enjoy both myself and my life. That offering is made with a smile.

Lay your offerings to Father Winter

I will choose to love the cold, because choice is life and life is intention. I have set my intention of building here in Boulder and will now adjust to the spiderweb of consequences that grow from them, with grace and action.

If I can’t swim in a lake, I will ski down a mountain. I will not allow myself to wish for spring, at the expense of valuable time, even if it is spent in the winter. Life goes on, and no sand will be rushed through my existential hourglass.

So too does this symbology carry over to death. The third decade of life is the culmination of Endless Youthful Summer, mirroring the transition of the year. Young enough to have hot blood, but old enough to remember when it was boiling. A long way yet to go to the grave, but crystal-clear memories of what has passed, and grief of what will never be returned to. We must not dread the future because it does not shine like what has passed. Hindsight is always rosier than the present. Relish every stage.

We will rage. We will stand and choose to fight against the gasping, sputtering, dying of the light. We will grab it by the neck and force it to remain above the horizon for as long as our grip has strength, and start a fire in the dark after it has sunk beyond our reach.

If you are struggling, suffering, drowning, you must re-imagine yourself. You are staring down a fork of existence, and you must choose whether to succumb or seize the reins.

Choose to live, even when Lady Fortuna has chosen you to die. As long as you pull breath into your lungs, you have one more second of immeasurable depth to assign meaning to.

Tragedy will happen. You will die, I will die, everyone we love will die. I will not spend a second of it begging for the universe to hear my pleas for fairness, to wish for what has not come to pass.

Instead, I will rage. I will wield my birthright of vitality to bring choice to every impasse. Short or long, tragic or bountiful, I alone will direct the flow of the water as it carves the canyons of my existence.

Choose to be good, to do good, and to inspire good, on your own terms. We are just a vector of energy that came from the stars and will return to the ground, which can consciously create positive impact in that short space between phases.

If the universe wants the light to die, it had better come with the intention to kill. Shoulder your burden and strengthen your resolve against tragedy. Seize responsibility with gratitude, as every result or consequence is a chorus singing hymnals to our autonomy. Manifest the reality you desire and when the universe raises its fist, be prepared to fight.

Rage against the shared tragedy of temporary existence. Rage against the unforeseeable pivots of fortune. Rage against the dying of the light by becoming the light.

With love from me to you,

Alec (for now)

Note: No AI was used to write, edit, or otherwise modify this article.