Time is a precious resource. Often priceless, come to think of it.

We all get a nice big cut, and then we spend the rest of our lives figuring out what to do with it. I'd hesitate to say that anyone truly wastes their allotted sum --diff'rent strokes fer diff'rent folks, none of my business you know?-- but I find it remarkable how many people seem to think that their chosen path is the only possible correct answer. There's a certain presumptiveness, if not arrogance, in such claims that very much rubs me the wrong way.

Now, I can understand such an attitude if it genuinely comes from a misguided sense of altruism: these people are honestly worried about you, and they think they can save you by showing you their way, which is obviously the one true way as decreed by… whoever. I might not agree with such a mindset, but at the very least I can respect that it comes from a legitimate desire to help people.

Even more than that, I can respect those who're able to live and let live. Any consequences or punishment for our lives are our problem, not theirs, and so they choose not to press the issue. Some might call that morally neglectful; I call it efficient and egalitarian. Major brownie points to anybody in this category.

But we all know those aren't the kinds of people who actually drive me up the wall. No: that would be the people who insist that choosing not to conform is a direct, personal insult and attack against those who do. Who completely defer all responsibility for literally everything bad ever onto those who beg to differ. Who cannot even conceive of the notion of being incorrect, and treat any such suggestions as though they were symptoms of mental illness.

I am not fond of these people, to put it politely. I am not going to tell them their beliefs are wrong, because I have no way of knowing if they are, but I am perfectly willing to call them hypocrites for not affording people the same chance that they had at choosing what’s right for them. Because, yes, I do believe it is a choice. And if your choice happens to coincide with that of many others and it works for you? Great! More power to you. Just don't take it as carte blanche to start pestering those who aren't buying the hype.

"But this is all there is, and therefore all we have!" they cry. "Without this, what meaning is there to life? To anything?!"

Well, unlike those people I won't claim to have a definitive answer to that, but I can tell you what works for me and then you can decide for yourself if it'll work for you. It's pretty straightforward really, and it doesn't even have to invalidate your previous beliefs. It's just my method for reconciling the infinite, inevitable differences between myself and the rest of the world.

The meaning of life is to find meaning in life.

And I'm perfectly happy to find it on my own, thank you very much.

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I normally avoid anything resembling outright moral philosophizing in this gallery, but this is something that's been on my mind for a while now and I figured I'd get it out of my system already. And it was a convenient way of repaying those 6 weeks worth of 5-Sentence Sunday that I owed you guys

More submissions coming in a few hours. First I need to cool down and stop this summer from melting me any more than it already has.

This piece belongs to me. Your soul belongs to me if that's what you really want.