Beyond the hazy mind to the other side of YOLO

I actually hate the phrase "YOLO" because most of those who aspire to live by this so-called "life altering motto" do so not because they truly recognize the fragility of life, but because they want an excuse to act without thought or concern for how those actions affect not just themselves but everyone around them. It has essentially become their excuse to live a life of debauchery without guilt.

While I do not pretend to have all the answers about life and what follows, the reality is that, God or not, we are all judged at death.

And that is the other side of the "you only live once" motto; you also only die once. That's right; YODO.

Everything that leads to that moment is judged. Don't believe in God? You'll still be judged.

Personally, I believe in God; and I am awful at living my life as a testament to His existence; but that does not mean I do not believe; only that my faith is not strong enough.

For a moment, though, let's look at how YODO affects the person who does not believe in God. As an American citizen who fully supports the right to freedom of religion, I believe this right extends to lack of religion. Even the most agnostic of people, though, believes that their actions have an impact.

That impact has a cosmic sense. If the universe is indeed just one big cosmic accident of ever expanding time and space, then we are all composed of the same matter and material. At our must fundamental core, we are all the remnants of an ancient piece of cosmic dust. That means that we are all tied together. If we are all tied together, my actions have a direct impact on yours.

More importantly, that cosmic dust is left behind when our bodies decompose into the dust and become the blowing dust of our planet.

This is all pretty weird to talk about. But when we are returned to dust and become the dust of a universe again, our dust is left blowing around and it then becomes part of the world at large.

Don't believe we are judged at death without a God? Read a newspaper. Everyone is judged. Sometimes that judgement is that we are nothing more than a blot of ant guts in the history of the world. So all that bluster about living once becomes  a moot point. If your impact is nothingness; or worse. And, when you are nothingness, did you really live? When you are remembered as the worst sort of human to exist, did you really live?

in some ways, we can get caught up in the other side of that equation. So caught up in being "remembered" that we neglect what is truly important. I think that happens to many of us at different times in our lives.

The last four months have been somewhat of a blur. Over the past few years, I have made a lot of friends through football. Or so I thought.

You see, I have always been one to say some things that not everyone can appreciate. nonetheless, to my friends, I have been someone always loyal; always helping where I am able. As time passed, however, I discovered that I had not really made as many friends as I believed.

It was a harsh lesson; a lesson I was not ready for. In some ways, this is my own fault; I have let myself be scattered around to so many interests, that there was not as much time for truly developing deep relationships with friends. They were all cordial, but they were also fairly superficial.

I know that this little website started to get a different point across about a recruit who is now off to the NFL; that is how long it has been. I know that most of the people who have read my blog could care less about my personal philosophical ramblings.

And, you know what, I understand that. I wouldn't either. You came to read about football. And, because my introduction to the world was as a writer of a positive side, it was predictable that anything negative I wrote would end very badly. Objective was okay, so long as it was objectively positive.

And, you see, that is where I went wrong. I began to have delusions about what it is I really do. I was working so hard for affirmation that I forgot who I was. Journalist? Please. I just wrote fancentric articles. When I tried to cross over, it simply flopped like a deflated balloon in the wind.


Was the stuff I said untrue? No. Every word was true.

Were sources invented? No. The people that were my sources were real. I chose not to name them to protect not just the source, but the source of the source. That's right, there were others who could have verified the stories I wrote, but that would have compromised their position with the sources as well.

It is this that really caused a sore spot in my own mind. I felt betrayed, even though I knew that these people could do nothing to help.

Sometimes we don't even noticed that we have become enraptured with acclaim and praise. As we work through our daily life, we simply do the things that we have done; without self-reflection about what is happening, we simply continue like drones; robots trudging our way through the day.

That's what I was doing with writing.

While I am self reflective in many aspects of life, writing had become some sort of drug; a method of self-validation that was generated through the validation of others.

And the validation would continue; but only as long as I could write enough positive and avoid the negative. I was not a writer; I was an entertainer. But I had fooled myself into thinking some pretty grandiose stuff about what I was doing. Compared myself to an abstract artist.

How ridiculous is that? Abstract art? I am not Faulkner. I am not Tolstoy. I write about college football and recruiting for a fan website. There is nothing wrong with that task. There is demand for this kind of writing. But it became time to stop fooling myself and buying into self-created delusions of grandeur.

Yes. I have learned some lessons the hard way. Demand? Outside of a small audience, there is no demand for my trifling ramblings. And, you know what, that is okay.

Hard is his calling in life, and bitterly he feels his solitude.