The above twist to the title (the actual name is No One Here Gets Out Alive) of journalist Jerry Hopkins’ biography of Jim Morrision, has been running through my mind for a couple of weeks now. Mainly spurred on by recent events across the world.

Call it a neurosis, idiosyncratic behavior, but that’s the way my mind works. A string of words will for whatever reason plant themselves in my brain, and until I write them out in a poem or some other kind of writing, they’re stuck there.

Somewhere along the line, I had removed the word ‘Here,’ and it was only in doing a little research, I discovered the correct title. Anyways, I like mine better, as it represents something completely different, though still loosely linked to what Morrison and The Doors said in their song, Five to One.

Maybe it’s just that I’m getting older, but at 55, I sometimes wonder if I’ve seen enough...had enough, and though I know I won’t get out alive, I’d like to at least leave this world with my dignity intact, and not having been shot or blown up by some lunatic on a suicide mission from God.

It never fails to amaze me that there are some in this world, thankfully a minority, who believe they have a God given right to force their beliefs on others, and if we don’t convert, they’re perfectly within their moral boundaries to harass, if not kill us outright.

I look around me, and there’s a lot of good people out there, in fact, the majority, but it’s hard to focus on the positive, when it seems every week now, days in a row sometimes, someone has lost it in any number of ways.

The kind mentioned above, or the Bernie Madoffs and Lance Armstrongs of the world, who rationalize that it’s OK to lie, steal, plagiarize, bully, and in some cases, murder their way to the top, in order to achieve...live the good life, blind to the reality, or ignoring the fact that none of us are here for a long time, and whatever financial and material wealth we’ve accumulated can’t be taken with us when we go.

It brings me back to the days of my youth, when in immaturity, misplaced anger and naïveté, I made mistakes, some quite big. One of which landed me on the wrong side of The Law. While in jail, I was exposed to every kind of human animal imaginable, and realized then and there that Crime was not the path I wanted to follow. I thank my lucky stars that it didn’t turn out worse, and that I learned from my mistake, since then never living beyond my means, and certainly not at the expense of others. Sadly, many don’t come to this same realization until later on in life, sometimes when it’s too late.

In closing, my hope in writing and sharing this is that those beginning to embark on the paths mentioned above, will stop for a moment, think...and ask themselves if it’s really worth it...the misery it will cause others...themselves in the end, and though no one gets out alive in a mortal sense, to keep an open mind to the possibility that we will be judged in a higher court when our time is up here.

© 2013

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02/16/2013

Posted on 02/16/2013
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti