One Interpretation of Life and Death

You don’t stop; not ever. You keep on walking, forward, and you have to. Even if you are exhausted, your body weighted, you mind even heavier, your muscles rejecting every force of will that sends them pulsing in movement, you must run on. You move like rest hates you; almost as if you were to stop, the repose would destroy you. Your body would be torn to shreds, your momentum stolen from you, more harshly and tragic than would a baby be stolen from her mother’s arms, you feel. You fear, more greatly than an eternal walk in suffering, not being able to walk again; once you stop, will, again, you be able to start? So you don’t ever cease, you engage your bones towards nothing, and yet in the direction of a goal. You push your knees straight and bent and straight again; you endure your feet to carry your legs, beneath wheezing breath, trembling hands, and a thunder heart. You know must move and never stop, and yet, without an iota of comprehension as to what either means.
Why go on? Why not stop? We cannot answer, we know not why. What it is that would grip you and drag you, having caught up, if you were to allow it, if you were to sit and take one easy breath, above steady hands, and a rhyming heart, if you were to adhere to the heavy burdens which cripple your pace and intensifies a thickening gravity, we can only have faith that it is worse than pain; only faith that we are truly being chased. Perhaps it truly is a blissful peace of rest and recovery; it may be so that there is no devilish force tracking our paths. And yet, we do not know, so we continue, safe, cautious, step by step, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat. We drudge on.
Many, though, if they have strength, even run; they sprint, as though it is a race. Is it a race? They hasten to that invisible light, they run as far as they can to a horizon, which changes for no one, which you see always the same and never reaching it. Where others fall behind or more still give up their quarry, they move with speed; they pass those who have ceased. Yet, even those who sprint eventually stop.
You don’t stop; not ever, but eventually, everyone must.

Ok yeah, I figured it would be best for me to start by posting my oldest and my (perceived) worst piece, so it's nothing special, just an over extended analogy of how I feel about the futility of death and the odd phenomenon that people tend to ignore its pursuit, though it is certainly the largest part of our lives. I mean, birth and death seem to be the most considered elements to life, and birth, the beginning with stores of potential and bubbly cuteness, can not yet compared to the end, whence one has already found identity and, in a sense, thus become a person, and individual. I hope that helps you understand the metaphor of this blue-huey.

and yes, the paragraphs are solid blocks; read them, read them and like it.

As a disclaimer: If you are confused in any way by this review I would be delighted to explain it if you contact me personally!

This piece is full of striking images. Unfortunately, since this is your first post on YWS I must TEAR IT APART! Mua haha. But before I do so I want to let you know that I think your ideas shine through here. I'm not going to say it is perfect because, well, it seems a little incomplete to me. It felt like I opened a book for the first time and just read the very end of a story where the protagonist has some epiphany. Epiphanies are born. They grow from a body. This one is somewhat disembodied; it has no mention of a character. Not even a 1st person character (I)--just "you". Except, obviously the character is yourself and the story is your own life. It was still good, but I think the ideas would be more stable if they had a body to fasten themselves onto.

Hmm...I also noticed the first paragraph is you-y. There are places where the yous and yours are unnecessary gunk and clog up the flow of the piece. Find places where "you" can be eliminated leaving those clear, influential phrases such as "momentum stolen." Here's one example:

You move like rest hates you; almost as if you were to stop, the repose would destroy you.

I just counted 4 yous in one sentence. Ouch. I might try something like this: "Rest hates you. Repose destroys you." The second person element is still there, but its reduced by half. But then again, this might mess up the parallelism of the piece. Also, notice how I split that long, complex sentence into two shorter, simpler ones? That is something else I would like to address...

Even though this piece is short (two paragraphs) I found myself getting confused and lost. This particular sentence is so twisty that I will admit that I never even finished reading it.

What it is that would grip you and drag you, having caught up, if you were to allow it, if you were to sit and take one easy breath, above steady hands, and a rhyming heart, if you were to adhere to the heavy burdens which cripple your pace and intensifies a thickening gravity, we can only have faith that it is worse than pain; only faith that we are truly being chased.

I noticed that you are fond of long, complex sentences. This is fine. Just remember to mix things up once in a while--keep a blend of complex sentences illustrating an idea with short ones simply stating your point in between. I have been fighting with this myself for a long time. Whenever I'm trying to stay simple and understandable (which I think is important for these philosophical things) I try to keep a rule of having only one idea per sentence. Periods separate ideas with a mental breath.

I realize that sometimes your artistic/philosophical side wants to run wild, but if you value clarity I implore you to try this! I used to get carried away by ideas and everything was great as long as I kept my work to myself. But I soon longed to be understood by others. The challenge of writing is not so much capturing ideas for yourself, but sharing them with others. Once you are sure that you actually can write in a way that can be understood, the next step will be mixing complexity back in until you hit that right balance for your own style of writing.

I hope that wasn't too harsh. I really think you have some deep feelings showing through here. It's good. I just wish they were more visible.

P.S. But the truth might be the opposite. Maybe your ideas are visible, and I am blind. Perhaps it is beyond my ability to understand. I often find myself wondering this...

Oh man! OHMAN! Thanks for the advice!
but if it makes you feel better, one of those commas in that one sentence should have been a question mark (?) so it should have been something like this:
"What is it that would grip you and drag you, having caught up, if you were to allow it, if you were to sit and take one easy breath, above steady hands, and a rhyming heart, if you were to adhere to the heavy burdens which cripple your pace and intensifies a thickening gravity? We can only have faith that it is worse than pain; only faith that we are truly being chased."

yeah sorry, I dont blame you if you did not finish, i'm a gonna change that part to a question. but honestly, if i could have read this aloud, i think my lengthy, philosophically rampant, sentences would make much more sense; considering i wanted that description of the 'pursuing death' to not be disjointed from the idea, i was hoping to begin, let you know the details, and make my point as wholesomely and connectedly as possible, i guess desiring the reader absorb the conditions of 'stopping' but maintaining the idea in this form:
"What it is that would grip you and drag you, we can only have faith that it is worse than pain; only faith that we are truly being chased."

does that help?

oh, and the excessive "you"s were intentional, it was the best way i could think of to make it as personal an experience as possible to the reader, letting them know right out and plainly, no question, this applies completely to them, as it does to us all. But i see your point in the annoyance of the frequency of the word, and perhaps i will more limit its existence in the passage, but rest assured the over use was with reason.

RelletyRotsMai wrote:
but honestly, if i could have read this aloud, i think my lengthy, philosophically rampant, sentences would make much more sense; considering i wanted that description of the 'pursuing death' to not be disjointed from the idea, i was hoping to begin, let you know the details, and make my point as wholesomely and connectedly as possible, i guess desiring the reader absorb the conditions of 'stopping' but maintaining the idea in this form:
"What it is that would grip you and drag you, we can only have faith that it is worse than pain; only faith that we are truly being chased."

does that help?

Heh. This is what I meant by being too complex. Yet again, I did not finish this (enormous) sentence and I never will. Being of average intelligence I do not have the ability to comprehend something so complicated all at once. When I read something (I'm just going to speak for myself here; I can't be sure this is true for all readers) I comprehend one entire sentence at a time. But when a sentence is sooooo long and contains soooo many different ideas my poor little brain gets boggled. Pleasepleaseplease consider cutting back your sentences to make them less confusing.