R.I.P Jack I wrote this regarding the value of life after attending the funeral of Jack Monaghan. Witnessing the anguish his family endured realined my percetions. Wednesday, September 19, 2007 R.I.P Jack "It is only by following your deepest instinct that you can lead a rich life, and if you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, then your life will be safe, expedient and thin." Living in fear of consequence? Fear of doing badly in school? Fear of letting down those who expect such great things of you? These matters are irrelevant. You could spend your entire school life studying, thinking "A few years of keeping my head down and then I can let my hair down", and two days after graduation you get hit by a bus. Fair enough, this is "worst case scenario". But for some this will be the case. If you live your whole life inside a bubble, you may not get any form of illness but you will miss out on what it is to live. I am often criticized, basically, for sabotaging my future. I do not see it as sabotaging my future, but as, sacrificing a certain amount of success in my unavoidably uncertain future for the sake of the present, the here and now. The here and now is all we have. The future, for anyone of us, may just as easily not happen as happen. It's like when you get a nice new set of cloths as a child, and decide, to make sure that when you need them they're in pristine condition, to hang them in your wardrobe. For months, they hang there idle. Un-creased, unstained and untainted. Just perfect for when you finally call upon them to dazzle. But low and behold, by the time that occasion rolls around and you finally blow the dust off that outfit, you've grown out of it. This beautiful outfit, wasted for caution. This life that we may never get to try on, is hanging in our wardrobe. Make the most of it while you can. You have no idea just how suddenly you may grow out of it, and have to pass it down for the next generation to enjoy. Forever spotlessly tainted, so as those inheriting it, may never enjoy it as they should have. Written following the death of Jack Monaghan. Aged 20 years. Died Sat. 15th September 2007. Drown while enjoying a morning swim. In death, as in life, always making the most of his time on earth. R.I.P Diarmuid Ó Flaitheartaigh Ballisodare, Sligo, Ireland