Each of us creates our own little mythologies, fitting ourselves into stories of gods and monsters, heroes and villains. For as much as everyone loves the antihero in popular culture, few of us want to be the villain. We’re the hero of our story, beset on all sides by adversary. Few think that the choices they make are wrong.

I had no choice. It was for the greater good. I deserved it. What was I supposed to do?

I wanted it.

Life is rarely simple enough to merit black and white thinking, so we rationalize and excuse the often inexcusable. We sent the guilt that comes with behavior we know is wrong. Or we seek out those of similar morality and let them validate our pathologies, finding solace in the brutality of others. We sear our consciences.

I’m not as bad as that bitch. At least I don’t act like him. We should all just live and let love, right? I’m not judgmental.

The sad fact is that very seldom are we anything more than bit players in our own lives. We drift between one catastrophe and another crisis, losing the name of action. Busyness and apathy overwhelm our forward momentum until, one day, we find we are at an end. Some of us look back and see the timeline branching, the lives we could have led, the joy we could have known, but most of us just wink out, less a supernova than the sputtering coldness of a dead star, the whisper of spent hydrogen all that remains of its existence.

A victim of entropy.

We are neither hero nor villain, but a face in the crowd.

But what, dear reader, if we decide to burn? Not “leave your mark” or any of that Instagram inspo garbage. No delusions of grandeur or changing the world. No one is going to change the world singlehandedly.

You change your corner of the world. You put what you want to receive into others. You become what you have observed is missing in your world, and you take small steps to make that microcosm a better place.

But that’s not what it is to burn.

Fire is dangerous, obviously. It’s cleansing as well. It steals oxygen from the surrounding space to survive. It illuminates. It eliminates. It also creates an environment where beauty can erupt from destruction. It’s gorgeous. Hypnotic.

Pine tree seeds are released from pinecones in the heart of a forest fire. Fire clears away old growth to make way for new life, exposing forest floors to sunlight. It aids creation where there had only been stagnation.

It hurts, yes. But we begin again, unburdened by the old shadows and detritus. We breathe out fire and inhale sunlight.

Setting aside our tired passion plays and lives half lived is terrifying but in that fear we find something we hadn’t realized possible — freedom. No mythologies. No gods or monsters. Just life, begging to be lived.

Liberation.

Stepping into the light of our brief time onstage, and embracing what we’ve been given. Refusing to be buried prematurely. Alive.

Life is short and brutal. We should be living it, not as heroes or villains or victims in need of saving, concerned with the expectations of others, or letting others make choices for us.

But with a lifetime burning in every moment.

Toes on the edge; it’s such a lovely view.