The Death of Us

Our minds are devilish beasts.  There is that traitor in all of us, that part of ourselves that, when we are on the edge of a precipice, urges us to lean over, that irresistible need to HAVE to look over the edge into the chasm beneath, even if we already know what's there.  Then there is that feeling, that if I lean over just a little bit more, I'll fall, and there is a part of you that craves that, that wants you to lean over just a little bit more and jump, plunge to your death.  And it frightens you, it scares you that there is a part of your mind you didn't even know was there, is whispering insidious urges into your heart that you WANT to jump, you want to know what it feels like, the adrenaline, the rushing fear even stronger than the wind, the jarring impact of your body being dashed to pieces on the rocks.  Then the rest of you, the primal animal instincts of your flesh, screams at you to GET BACK GET BACK GET BACK YOU'RE GONNA DIE, and you throw yourself backwards, and can't bring yourself to even go near the edge again.  But there is always the whisper, the exhilarating, irresistible pull towards the edge.  And that sneaking part of you feeds of the thrill, the fear, of the fall, and would like nothing more than for you to plunge to your death, here and everywhere else, again and again and again, for that is life to it. 
Our minds, those self-destructive feelings peculiar to humankind, we tell ourselves will never be able to win over the animal instincts which all living things have.  But every day, every time we go against what we should be doing, what is good for us, we let that destructive beast in our minds convince us to jump off the cliff, whatever that cliff may be.  Our minds, those complex, twisted machines we will never understand, will, one way or another, be the death of us, in the end.