Perhaps that "moment of clarity" is the reason some so- called "primitive" cultures require a rite of passage into wo/manhood. Sort of like that scene from the movie A Man Called Horse.

It is in that moment, when one is face to face with one's own mortality, that one feels most alive. All the clutter and insipid aspects of day-to-day living are stripped away, leaving the bare essence of pure existence in the bottom of the crucible.

To live through the moment engenders a deeper appreciation of and respect for the simple pleasures, yet at the same time endows one with the sense that most of what we experience is illusion - mere sleight of hand that no longer captivates or intrigues us once we know how the trick is done. The "stories" lose all their magic. What we are left with is a faint and fragile glimmer of self-awareness adrift and rudderless in a sea of nothingness, armed with the revised knowledge that every man is an island.

To die at that moment is the easiest thing in the world to do.

IMHO, Neil Lowe