living corpses

“everyone’s life ends, but no one ever completes it.”-Modest Mouse

What is it that any of us hope to accomplish in this life? What do we want out of this life? Most of us are just existing, just doing what it takes to keep the lights on, to keep a roof over our heads, keeping ourselves fed. Is that really living? Is that all we’re supposed to aspire towards?
As a child, my parents told me what they wanted me to do, what they expected me to become. I had my own ideas, of course. None of which were very concrete or even realistic, but I wanted something that was mine and mine alone.
Our lives pass so quickly, but it seems to take forever when you’re still young and the days plod on hour after hour. As a Buddhist, I should believe that this one life is amongst a multitude of lifetimes that I must live, but what if this is the first time, the last time I will ever live.
I look for some reminder, some residual afterglow, after image of those that have died, but never seem to find anything. Nothing of those that were close to me seems to have survived in a physical/meta-physical form that I can point to and say with certainty that—yes, that’s the spirit of my grandmother, hovering over us just now.
When you think about the paths that they had traveled, the places they’ve lived, the things that they’ve seen, it just boggles my mind. Some of those places are still here, but where are the spirits, the souls of those who have gone? Where is it that they go to when they have gone? Grams and Auntie and my grams all had very strong personalities—strong, stubborn, willful woman who exerted a strong influence over all those around them. But where are they now, where is that exertion, that influence? Did we internalize all of it after many years of being under their influence and do we now exert that same feeling, those same thoughts and beliefs?
What is it really that any of us hope to accomplish with this lifetime? What can we do other than to simply live? What do I want to do before I die? Have I accomplished everything that I’ve wanted to in this life? I have to remember to live before I die. We have excellent houses here for dead corpses, and excellent ones for the living corpses as well.