What she learned from her harrowing brush with mortality was all of the cliched stuff you’re already nauseatingly familiar with, namely that life should not be taken for granted, that one should unfailingly “live in the moment”, that personal relationships are the most important glue informing humankind, that the here and now is all that matters, and so on and so on and so on. But she knew all this tripe anyway—ad nauseum—which then begs the question: Why does one have to tiptoe along the boundaries of consciousness in order to appreciate life to a greater extent? Why does one need to creep up to the very lip of the abyss and stare down into the bottomless void just to feel the sense of wonderment attending sentience? Why challenge mortality prematurely when even the world’s biggest fool knows full well it will prevail in the end anyway? You shouldn’t have to, and yet almost everyone who does walk that existential tightrope comes back with the same boring story to tell and the same “lesson” purportedly learned.
Fred's Soapbox 