The Highest Score

Time is running out.

Tick, tick, tick.

Don’t you know the secret?

Money, power, lovers. How many have you got?

She has hundreds. He has millions. They have billions.

You’re nobody. Nothing. No one. Until you score.

Time is running out.

Tick, tick, tick.

You only live once, bro. Get it?

What’s your number? Quotient? Rating? Score?

Don’t you get it?

They have more. You have less.

Likes, favorites, fans. Lovers, dollars, hearts. Thousands, millions, billions.

Does your life count? Measure it. That’s your score.

Zero? Null? Empty?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Everyone wants the high score. Desperately. Furiously. At any cost. For any price. Why?

Duh.

Time is running out.

Tick, tick, tick.

You only live once, bro.

So get to work. Grunt. Lift. Grind. Perform.

Click, swipe, tap.

Harder, harder, harder.

Press the button. Pull the lever. See the screen.

Faster, faster, faster.

Win the highest highest highest score. Thousands, millions, billions.

Before you die. Just another desperate hunted animal turned to dust.

Are you a dummy? That’s all there is. The hunt. The kill. The triumph. The delight. And then. Decay. Sickness. Death.

Nothing.

Is that what you want? Don’t you want it all? I do. I want the High Score. The highest High Score. So I know my life…counted.

Time is running out.

Tick, tick, tick.

Right?

Wrong. Here’s a secret.

Time doesn’t run.

You do.

Time is a stream that flows into being

Time isn’t running out.

You are.

You are running out. Of moments. Of chances. Of reasons. To become the person you were put here to become.

When you press the button. When you pull the lever. When you pursue the high score. Hundreds, thousands, millions. Lovers, dollars, fans. Fucks, shots, parties.

You will become nothing in the pursuit of everything.

You will become no one in the pursuit of everyone.

You will become nobody in the pursuit of everybody.

Read those three sentences again.

And so.

You will only become yourself in the surrender to zero. Not zero things. Toys, people, friends, lovers, jobs, titles, commodities. A greater zero.

Zero moments wasted. On anything less than love, passion, dreams, suffering, nobility, greatness, wonder, grief, joy. Zero moments wasted. On anything less than what is incandescent, searing, unthinkable, laughable, hopeless, dangerously noble, impossible, daunting, unreasonably beautiful, senselessly noble.

For that is what will set your being on fire. And burn away everything that is not truly you.

Time is a stream that runs into being. All things, at last, being themselves. That is all time is. The water in which each life may reach the sea of fruition.

Time isn’t running out.

You are.

That is why zero is the greatest number. It is the highest score of all.