How often do you think of humanity? Truly consider the time our species infested this ball in an abyss. These are my thoughts at their purest form. After everything else has been stripped down, I ultimately retrace everything back to that perspective. The original provocation hardly matters. Typically it's a particular situation, debate, or repetition that will set me off. Today it happened to be silence.
The vivid image of ladders, sleek and comparative to the steps to climb up on the side of a swing-set, shooting into the sky. We all get one and we climb at all our ambitions. It's an endless cycle of steps, higher and higher away from the ground. Even if you wanted to stop there is no going back down (it's time). There is never anything to truly look forwards to at the end of your ladder. You'll just fall back into the ground. This is why I think religion is so prominent. No one wants to believe that there is nothing once their time is up. Perhaps this exact metaphor is why heaven was ideologically created in the clouds.
Everything is just to pass the time. So take another step. (the past never passes, it simply amasses)
I do not mean to offend anyone with this metaphor. My beliefs are that I am ignorant, I do not feel that my train of thought is the "right" way. So, just take my metaphor for what it's worth and leave it at that if you do not agree.