The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burdens of the past.

-  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

- Richard Dawkins

The purpose of our life is just to serve the economy

Yet another day to toss away
What does my clock display?
It says eight
Shit, I'm late for work again, so then
I dip with my pad and my pen
Step into the workplace with my work face
Wince at my time card cuz I'm scarred
Mad cuz I sacrifice my day and gets me
A trifling hourly wage of six-fifty, nifty
Now I'm off to slave quarters
With a whole bunch of other people's sons and daughters
Working so they can be mothers and fathers
Laboring real hard, hoping the boss offers
More petty cash to his bums and paupers
Kissing his ass cuz they hoping they prosper
Here's the math:
You work a third of your day, away
The government takes a third of your check, correct
You go home and drink cuz you don't get
An ounce of respect, and your spirit is wrecked
Life is a gift to be enjoyed, every second every minute
It's temporary, not infinite
Yet I find myself looking at the clock
Hoping for the day to fly by, so I ask myself "Why?"
I'm doing this remedial work for second graders

Sunita Suni Williams