Tyler Derdun Never Lies...

The Rules of dying:

1st Rule: You do not talk about dying.
2nd Rule: You DO NOT talk about dying.
3rd Rule: If you give up, tap out, it's all over.
4th Rule: It's only you in the fight.
5th Rule: You only have one life.
6th Rule: No guts, no glory.
7th Rule: Life goes on as long as it has to.
8th Rule: If this is your first time, you're probably shitting a brick.

How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?

Well, not a lot.

Your entire life is a fight. From sperm to the deathbed.

Get this: When I was 21 yes I was told I would die. When you think about it, it's not really news. I knew that one day I was going to die eventually. I knew that no one lived forever. So why was it such a big deal? Because like everyone else, you know death is coming, but it's always thought of as something that will come, but it won't come now. It's thought of like Xeno's paradox of locomotion. In order for death to come, first it must travel half way to you, and once it travels half way it needs to travel half of the remaining distance, then half of that remaining distance, and so on, and so on, and so on. Thus, death can never arrive because there are an infinite number a half way points between you and death.

Ha. And this absurd logic is something we actually convince ourselves is true. Philosophy categorizes this type of argument of "Reductio ad Absurdum" (i think), which loosely means, if you follow out this argument to it's end, the result one would get produces an absurd outcome, which negates the argument altogether. But we always imagine we are invincible and act surprised when we are confronted with death.

But people do die. So Xeno's paradox must be absurd, because according to him no one can die, but reality proves otherwise.

We all accept the fact that cancer exists. No one refutes that point. What becomes silly is that we believe that cancer will happen, it just will not happen to ourselves. Our lives are ego-centric by necessity. We are only able to look at our lives, and the world proper, through our individualized perspective. So we are the main characters in our stories. We cannot imagine the star of the movie dying at the beginning of the story. He's supposed to live a cool life, then meet adversity, then go through some serious ups and downs, then get the girl, AND THEN he can die. But only after everything is tied up in a nice neat packaging with a bow on top. That's why in "Top Gun" Goose dies in the middle of the movie, but Maverick (Tom Cruise - who could forget the volleyball scene? Seriously, though, who flexes while checking their watch for the time?) deals with his adversity, kills the bad guys and then gets the girl. Sure the charater Maverick dies evetually, but that stuff happens off the screen where no one can see it. Maverick doesn't die of cancer. He dies of old age.

And WE are the Tom Cruises of our life movies. And we never envision the main character dying in the first half of the movie. So we say things like "I know cancer happens, but it won't happen to me," because we are somehow too special to get cancer. It's okay to happen to other people, just not to us. Wouldn't it just be perfect if bad things happened to bad people, and nice things happened to nice people? It would be like us living in a Disney Movie where everyone lives happily ever after except for the bad people. We can all be Cinderella and the bad people can be the Step-mother.

But it's not a movie. For me it's real life. For YOU it's real life, whether you admit it or not. The point is not to constantly worry about death around every corner. It's only so that you can reflect on how you really want to live your life thinking that maybe tomorrow you don't get a chance to do what you always wanted to do. Or say good-bye to the people who deserve to hear it. My biggest fear is dying before I can make sure that everyone I love knows I love them. Here's how it is though: you can't choose the way you leave this life, but you can choose the way you live this life. Put it on a bumper sticker and sling that shit!

To put it another way, life is like a game of No Limit Texas Hold'Em Poker. You can win big taking risks and you could lose it all in one throw. there is no winning and losing, because to win today means to lose tomorrow and a loser tonight can be Chris Moneymaker in the morning. Sometimes you get Queens full of Aces and sometimes you get no pairs, no connectors, and your drawing dead before the flop. You cannot control which cards are dealt to you, but you can control how you play those cards. Check, raise, bluff, fold, bait, all-in, call... In life, like in poker: only focus on the things you can control, and let the chips (yes the pun was intended) fall where they may.

I can't speak for everyone, but if I'm going down... I'm going down breaking every knuckle in my fist punching against death. I'm going down on my terms.

I am not a Cancer Victim.

I am not a Cancer Patient.

I am a Boxer who always has a puncher's chance.

I am a soldier of life.

I am Jack's Smirking Revenge...