"Every exit is an entrance to somewhere else"
says the playwright and author Tom Stoppard,
and you know he's right.

More or less.

The problem lies in trying to determine
what 'somewhere else' actually means,
but I digress.

But like the famous glass
of water
which is either half full
or half empty,

which side of a passage one
is on
pretty much depends on
perspective.

When a person stops seeing themselves
as an infant
and starts seeing themselves as an adult
then they have just murdered
an infant.

But they have also brought into the world
a bouncing baby adult.

Perspective is everything.

So it is that we murdered and are born
over and over in life:
the child dies to become
the adult,

the sad dies to become the happy,
the lost dies to become the found,
the one thing dies to become another,

we change constantly through life
passing through doors arbitrary
and doors well defined,
becoming different people
as we go.

If you met your five-year old self,
would you even know each other?

What happened to that baby?
Where did it go?

You say it become you, over time,
but it is still...gone forever.

No different from being dead.

So Stoppard is mostly right.

Until you get to the issue of mortality.

Unless, of course,
there is more to that,
too.

But who gives a crap?

You live now, and that's all you really know,
if you are not a loon.

And in the now,
every exit really is an entrance
to a new state of being,
as long as you are there
to appriciate it.

All it takes is perspective.