Enlightenment?

(I've been needing to write this post for the last 4 days or so, but never got around to it)

Recently, I've been thinking about ends. Not 'ends' as in 'bookends,' but 'ends' as in the end of a cause, the end of life, of the world, of things good and things bad. Deep ends. Several stories have prompted this thinking:

The Speed of Darkness, a Starcraft book that I read, in which Ardo Melnikov, a Marine, dies defending the surrounding cities from the Zerg Swarm;

Cry, the Beloved Country, that infamous novel, in which Stephen Kumalo realizes the death of his son and the end--but also the beginning--of a way of life;

Some movie that we watched in Oregon, in which an asteroid smashes into the Earth (and a young Elijah Wood who marries his girlfriend to save her, but that really isn't important) and most of the Earth's population is destroyed and civilization knows it will have to start over;

The songs "Anesthesia," "Suffer," "You Don't Belong," "You," "Generator," "Live Again (The Fall of Man)," and others, by an un-named band ( Bad Religion);

And countless others that my memory has forsaken. I thought and thought and finally grasped that
1) Everything must end
2) It's foolish to be afraid of the end, because it is a natural, healthy, and beautiful part of...well...everything.

And that's my piece for tonight. Or most of it, anyway.