Darkover
Archangel
- Jul 29, 2021
- 5,535
We didn't choose this. We weren't asked whether we wanted to be born into a fragile body, in a chaotic world, bound by rules we didn't write. From the moment of birth, we are handed a life we didn't consent to — and expected to carry its full burden. We're told to survive, to work, to conform, to make something of ourselves — all while dealing with emotional wounds, physical decay, and a world that offers no guarantee of safety.
The human body is a machine built by blind evolution — full of vulnerabilities. It breaks, it ages, it suffers. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, cold, illness, injury — these are constant threats. Our brains are just as fragile. Depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief can crush someone as surely as any disease. Pain is baked into the biology of being alive. You're forced to manage it every day, or it consumes you.
Everything we love will die. Every person, every pet, every place, even the memories themselves — gone. Time erodes all things, no matter how precious. You can cling to moments, to people, to joy — but nothing is safe. This awareness haunts the mind, even if we try to ignore it. It's not a question of if we'll lose what we love — only when. That inevitability makes everything feel hollow.
Existence itself is built on destruction. To live, something else must die — plants, animals, ecosystems. Every meal is a quiet act of killing. Life feeds on life. Even microbes wage war in your gut. Nature is not peaceful. It is a blood-soaked battlefield, from the cellular level up to the predator's jaws. How can something so brutal be called beautiful?
There is no fairness written into the fabric of the universe. Good people suffer. Evil people prosper. Children are abused, the innocent are imprisoned, and those in power rarely pay for their cruelty. Justice is not automatic — it is rare, and often artificial. The world is not governed by moral law but by power, chance, and entropy. That's not a comforting truth — but it's a real one.
We are social creatures, yet modern life isolates us. Family bonds fracture. Friendships fade. Romantic love fails. People are surrounded by others and still feel completely alone. Loneliness gnaws at the soul. The absence of connection — of being truly seen and understood — makes life feel like a locked room with no exit. And if you cry out, most will look away, or worse, blame you for your suffering.
From birth, we are funneled into systems that don't care if we live or die — only if we produce, obey, and conform. School trains us for work. Work consumes our time and energy. Rent, debt, taxes — these keep us enslaved to a machine that pretends to be civilization. There is no freedom unless you are rich, and even then, it is conditional. If you're poor, disabled, broken, or different — you are expendable.
Perhaps the cruelest part: even leaving this hell is taboo. To say you don't want to live is treated like a defect, not a rational response to a world full of agony. Society criminalizes self-deliverance, medical systems pathologize it, and loved ones guilt you into staying. You're expected to endure no matter what. You're told that pain is your problem, not a symptom of a broken reality.
We walk on filth. On feces, on rot, on decomposed bodies — human and animal. The soil that feeds us is built from decay. Every bite of food we eat is born from death: the nutrients of corpses, the waste of the living, the endless cycle of breakdown. Life grows from rot. We beautify it with gardens and grocery stores, but underneath it all is the stench of decomposition. Even nourishment is touched by death.
Very few people have what they want. Fewer still get to keep it. Most live in quiet frustration — settling, compromising, yearning. The dreams we're sold as children — love, freedom, success, peace — rarely arrive. And if they do, they're fleeting. People chase desires like shadows, only to find emptiness or loss waiting on the other side. Wanting becomes a lifelong ache — and getting, a rare and fragile event.
We're told that having children is a miracle, a purpose, a joy. But what are we really doing? We are creating more sentient beings to suffer, to hunger, to ache, to die. To be rejected, bullied, overworked, abandoned. To face the same pain we did — or worse. People call that love. But what kind of love delivers someone into a world of agony without asking them first?
Hell isn't beneath us. Hell is here — in the silence of abandonment, the grind of survival, the ache of loss, the endless injustice, and the slow decay of everything we love. For those who see clearly — not through the lens of denial or distraction — life itself can feel like punishment wrapped in illusion.
The human body is a machine built by blind evolution — full of vulnerabilities. It breaks, it ages, it suffers. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, cold, illness, injury — these are constant threats. Our brains are just as fragile. Depression, anxiety, trauma, and grief can crush someone as surely as any disease. Pain is baked into the biology of being alive. You're forced to manage it every day, or it consumes you.
Everything we love will die. Every person, every pet, every place, even the memories themselves — gone. Time erodes all things, no matter how precious. You can cling to moments, to people, to joy — but nothing is safe. This awareness haunts the mind, even if we try to ignore it. It's not a question of if we'll lose what we love — only when. That inevitability makes everything feel hollow.
Existence itself is built on destruction. To live, something else must die — plants, animals, ecosystems. Every meal is a quiet act of killing. Life feeds on life. Even microbes wage war in your gut. Nature is not peaceful. It is a blood-soaked battlefield, from the cellular level up to the predator's jaws. How can something so brutal be called beautiful?
There is no fairness written into the fabric of the universe. Good people suffer. Evil people prosper. Children are abused, the innocent are imprisoned, and those in power rarely pay for their cruelty. Justice is not automatic — it is rare, and often artificial. The world is not governed by moral law but by power, chance, and entropy. That's not a comforting truth — but it's a real one.
We are social creatures, yet modern life isolates us. Family bonds fracture. Friendships fade. Romantic love fails. People are surrounded by others and still feel completely alone. Loneliness gnaws at the soul. The absence of connection — of being truly seen and understood — makes life feel like a locked room with no exit. And if you cry out, most will look away, or worse, blame you for your suffering.
From birth, we are funneled into systems that don't care if we live or die — only if we produce, obey, and conform. School trains us for work. Work consumes our time and energy. Rent, debt, taxes — these keep us enslaved to a machine that pretends to be civilization. There is no freedom unless you are rich, and even then, it is conditional. If you're poor, disabled, broken, or different — you are expendable.
Perhaps the cruelest part: even leaving this hell is taboo. To say you don't want to live is treated like a defect, not a rational response to a world full of agony. Society criminalizes self-deliverance, medical systems pathologize it, and loved ones guilt you into staying. You're expected to endure no matter what. You're told that pain is your problem, not a symptom of a broken reality.
We walk on filth. On feces, on rot, on decomposed bodies — human and animal. The soil that feeds us is built from decay. Every bite of food we eat is born from death: the nutrients of corpses, the waste of the living, the endless cycle of breakdown. Life grows from rot. We beautify it with gardens and grocery stores, but underneath it all is the stench of decomposition. Even nourishment is touched by death.
Very few people have what they want. Fewer still get to keep it. Most live in quiet frustration — settling, compromising, yearning. The dreams we're sold as children — love, freedom, success, peace — rarely arrive. And if they do, they're fleeting. People chase desires like shadows, only to find emptiness or loss waiting on the other side. Wanting becomes a lifelong ache — and getting, a rare and fragile event.
We're told that having children is a miracle, a purpose, a joy. But what are we really doing? We are creating more sentient beings to suffer, to hunger, to ache, to die. To be rejected, bullied, overworked, abandoned. To face the same pain we did — or worse. People call that love. But what kind of love delivers someone into a world of agony without asking them first?
Hell isn't beneath us. Hell is here — in the silence of abandonment, the grind of survival, the ache of loss, the endless injustice, and the slow decay of everything we love. For those who see clearly — not through the lens of denial or distraction — life itself can feel like punishment wrapped in illusion.
