To Live is Christ

I can only die because I live. I could only live because I did not live. I could only exist because of reasons that were outside of my own existence. In a sense, my individual life is susceptible to that which is not intrinsic to my individuality. Why does a person live when they are obligated to die? Death becomes the most apparent to me when I am tired. Jean-Paul Sartre said "Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal." Personally, I forget that I am going to die often times, and I think that others hold fast to that same forgetfulness. But that is such an irrefutable and alien action, is it not? I am getting closer and closer to dying, yet so often I pretend that dying is merely a bad dream, or rather, that my vision of dying is simply an image of an unrealistic bad dream. Truth be told, it just makes me cringe writing about this topic. I could never accurately write about something that is completely out of my own existence and experience. But that is what death essentially is: being tossed out of my own existence and experience, at least, what I have perceived to be my own existence and experience. How many times have I aimlessly written about personal fascinations? Yes, it is that second word: many. I would hate to lose the experience of getting all tangled up in these thoughts. Some might say that such an experience is destructive, but I am basking in enjoyment. Make no mistake though, this does not always happen when I write. Do you see the ending? Do you see the death of my writing? It ends with Christ. I did not consciously intend to get to that point, but my river of ideas seemed to flow to the correct dam. Philippians 1:21 says "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." This is one of the most profound sentences that I have read, yet I do not know what it means. At least, I cannot conjure up an explanation for that sentence. However, something very personal tells me that it is truthful. May Christ be my conclusion.