A Eulogy for Edward Abbey

"When I write paradise, I mean not apple trees and only golden women, but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and gila monsters, sandstone, volcanos and earthquakes, bacteria, bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes disease and death and the rotting of flesh. Paradise is the here and now, the actual, tangible dogmatically real Earth on which we stand."

Edward Abbey and I have different views about paradise. I always think of paradise as a perfect place. A perfect destination after death where everything is magnificent and everything is great. 

Maybe because I'm still young and I still have the undying idealism in me. I can't still call a place with disease and death as a paradise. I can't still imagine that there will be pain and heart ache in the place I hope to stay forever someday.