In the natural world, life is marked by movement — the beating of a heart, the stretching of roots toward water, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the flicker of a thought across a mind. Everything alive is in constant motion, adapting, growing, reaching, responding.
But death… death is stillness.
When a living being dies, that motion ceases. There is no more growth, no renewal, no shifting or becoming. What remains begins to decay — not in a mystical sense, but in the raw, organic process of matter returning to the earth. What once pulsed with energy becomes still. What once connected — to other people, to touch, to breath, to sound — is now silent, separate, alone.
It is not cruel. It is not divine. It is simply natural.
In contrast, life is deeply relational. Everything alive is bound together in networks — of touch, of memory, of breath shared with trees and oceans and animals. To be alive is to be affected, to feel, to need, to offer, to respond. Life is diversity, not just of form, but of experience. Each life is a combination never to be repeated.
And because it ends — because death is certain — life is precious.
We don’t need myths or afterlives to make it so. The very fact that this one existence is finite gives it intensity, meaning, and urgency. We are here now. We are still moving. Still connected. Still changing.
Let’s not sleepwalk through it.
Let’s notice. Let’s care. Let’s move while we can.