Mortality

The virtues that give real personal power exist without the benefit of men or Gods, and cannot be easily written down or expressed with words. It isn't the sense of one's self that seems to bring action in domains arcane or banal. I don't even pretend to understand this state of being, and have dwelled there only a handful of times. 

People attempt to convey and explain this peaceful state through their unfailing faith and science of certitudes. Always, it is with panic in their voice and fear in their eyes. No one can bring it into the light and would scarcely blame the shadows for their own sake. 

It's that moment in the middle of the night when we think of how long we've lived, and wonder how much time we have left. That terror of being lost to the stars and everything we are vanishing with us when our mortal coil expires. Only I don't think it really is terror, or fear. It's something else. 

We attempt to give it many names, but the one that fits best is mortality. Any transcendent state would be meaningless without the threat of, or one being subject to, death. If one lived with no fear, there would be no contrast relative to what we mere mortals loosely define as real virtue. 

Therefore, to really know virtue, one must be subject to death. Lots of folks would jump in with how it's part of some Godly or cosmic plan that gives this notion weight. I would argue this: even if there is a plan, such a truth gives human agency a sort of unearthly power that transcends any agenda, temporal or celestial. 

I (just a man) subject to all, can deny everything for my own sake and be at peace. To myself there is only what occurs in the moment that matters. And, I can live forever in those moments. 

Thus, one man can understand the cosmos and everything in it simply by virtue of being born and being subject to death. Of all the religious and philosophical nonsense being spread like like cheap marmalade across the toast of humanity, I like the taste of that idea best. 

Simply, it means that everyone has a chance.