Alive or Just Breathing?

On this, the first post of my ego-maniacal blog, I'd like to share some thoughts that recently kept me up all night.

My friend Cody has started to lend me the hardbound collections of "The Walking Dead" by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard. "The Walking Dead" is a "Continuing Story of Survival Horror", centered upon Georgia Sherriff Rick Grimes. At the beginning of the series, Rick is shot and falls into a coma. Upon awakening 3 weeks later, he finds the hospital deserted... Except for the Walking Dead. The story follows Rick along with his family and friends as they struggle to survive the Zombie Apocalypse.

While reading "The Walking Dead", a strange series of thoughts started to take hold within my head... It hit me, that in an event such as that (or any catastrophic type calamity), that Surviving and Living are not exactly the same thing. What good is surviving if you're not really living? Is the only hope for survival so that when some semblance of normalcy returns, you'll be alive to enjoy it? It got me thinking about the current trajectory of my life (something I do with irritating regularity). All of the philosohical and zombie apocalypse-related bs boiled down into one question: "Am I Alive? Or Just Breathing?"

It seems to me that alot of people (myself included) are not truly living. They're simply existing, on auto-pilot, cruise control. Just shambling through life like mindless Zombies, or running through the gauntlet of Undead like the survivors. Either way, in some strange way that I will not even attempt to explain, "The Walking Dead" has inspired me to be more proactive in my life. Lame, I know. But it is what it is!