My teammates think that I am helplessly fatalistic.

And to some extent, they are correct.

The one thing that I would love to correct about their perception of me—however—is their constant assistance that I—being fatalistic—am inherently sunken into a pit of despair.

To some extent—yes—I am frighten. But it is not because of the awareness of death. But rather…something much more complicated.

At this point in my life, it is safe to say that I have accumulated a great deal of spiritual and psychobiological closure.

And this has all come to me with one thought that finally hammered into stone the true nature of existence for me.

Death is death. There is nothing beyond it.

I summon forth the essential qualities of existentialism.

Life….is absurd.

Why?

All human beings—all organisms for that manner; plants and animals and microbes—are unanimously given the essential instincts and qualities to survive. The frog learns to live an amphibious life in and out of water. The beaver builds his dam for his family. The ants form a convoy to carry food back to their nest.

So many years of evolution have produced organisms fully capable of surviving the hardships that assault them. Creatures now are more talented in continuing their existence and attaining sustenance than ever before.

And to what ends?

The frog shrivels away. The beaver eventually suffocates. And the ants become food for their next generations of young, hungry workers.

Life perfects its survivability only to die from the cold hand of mortality.

And for that reason, life is absurd.

As a human being, I can perceive this absurdity. The senselessness of death looms before me, and I can't see beyond the black curtain. I am a helpless observer strung before the inevitability of my end. And no matter how well I may feel today…no matter how much crime my teammates and I defeat…no matter if I get married and bear children and procreate life or do the exact polar opposite, I shall be rewarded with my own, natural termination in the long run. Or so is the running, observable pattern of my existence.

But none of that truly convinced me that death is real and absolute.

It wasn't until many months after joining the Titans and living amongst these wonderful, warm creatures who have both supported me and annoyed me that I found the sure sign of death's legitimate omnipotence.

My friends laugh.

As a matter of fact, all human beings laugh.

And just why is it that laughter is such a prevalent emotion in the human race?

I am at a loss to sit down and try to explain to some emotionless android what 'humor' is. For I don't know what it is myself. And I seriously doubt that even Beast Boy—or Cyborg when he's in a good mood could explain it.

Humor is like an explosive, orgasmic reaction to irony. But even then, one cannot divide the definition of irony from that of hilarity. There is no solid, self-supporting definition of humor.

Which leads me to accept the fact that humor is something instinctively indicative of human beings. And if that's the case, humor is as important and biologically functional a part of the human psyche as anger, sorrow, happiness, and fear.

But what purpose does humor serve?

Anger connects to the homo sapien carnivore instinct.

Sorrow functions as negative reinforcement in response to stimuli while happiness functions as positive reinforcement.

Fear is the most instinctive of human qualities and deserves very little explanation.

But what of humor?

Why do humans have this insipid desire to break from whatever it is they are doing and—upon impulsive reaction to a thought—exhale violently a chuckle or a laugh or some other outburst of hilarity?

And just now, it has clicked with me.

Laughter is humankind's instinctive response to death, for it reveals that within every single person's psychobiological construct that there is an inherent, genetic awareness of impermanence.

The blood that surges through our vessels knows that someday it will surge no more.

And that is absolutely absurd.

And our bodies and our minds know of this absurdity more than our superficial egos will admit to. And laughter is our only temporary, psychological escape from the pointlessness of existence.

Why do I know that humor is our response to absurdity?

Because absurdity is a specific realization dependent upon the exclusive sentience of human beings and our mutatedly-large cerebral cortexes. If animals possess a sentience that makes them aware of the inevitability of mortal death in spite of all their survival instincts….we as finitely observing beings are at a loss to declare. But answer me this: do animals laugh? Do they truly, truly laugh?

I am convinced now that death is real because laughter haunts human beings as a definitively instinctive absurdity.

But that isn't what frightens me.

What frightens me is that ever since I moved into the Tower—ever since I've been in the company of other human beings—I've had Beast Boy toss jokes at me, Cyborg pull pranks on me, and Starfire say ironically cute things in my company….

….and in each and every circumstance, my friends have laughed….

And I haven't.

In fact….I have never….ever truly felt the need to laugh while living alongside the Titans.

And I wonder…

I wonder if this is something deeply rooted in my magical existence that is forewarning my psyche—long before fate has a chance to confirm it—that I am destined to never taste death….

That perhaps….I am fated to live eternally…..

And that is what scares me.