What comes to your mind?

I am kind of hijacking this idea from Vishesh, one of my more recent readers, who is also a tremendous writer, at such a tender age.......
The question that she posed to her readers was: What comes to your mind when you read these words:
life
pain
joy
happiness
suffering
love
friend
earth
death


I did offer a response on her blog, something to the effect of the chronology of life, from beginning to end. Which, I believe to be true in one way. To me, when I read the words as she posted them, as I have posted them here, the appearance and flow of those words seemed to depict a chronological order of sorts in my mind. Now, in the light of a new day, I wanted to expand a bit upon them, in terms of what most quickly comes to mind when I think of them.

life: everything, all encompassing, that which we all pass through and experience.
pain: physical, psychic, spiritual or emotional, at the time that it occurs, we believe we won't possibly survive to come to the other side, healing and repair.
joy: almost indescribable, intensity, pure happiness and bliss, experienced more often the more evolved and self-aware that we become.
happiness: the step of feeling pleasure before we learn about joy. The things we do to remain content.
suffering: the requirement, the dues that we must pay in order to fully have what we are meant to in life; that which we go through on behalf of another, or in service to another.
love: is why we do everything that we do, whether it be good or bad; we all want love if we don't have it, want to keep it if we do, and want to despise it at times, because of what it is and of how badly we need it in our lives. Love is the center, the embodiment, of true souls.
friend: it is those rare, few people in our lives that know when to hold on, when to let go, when to support and encourage, when to guide gently in another direction, but always present even when they are not present. Friendship is not boastful, dishonest, demeaning, or vain. Friendships that are true just are.
earth: our mother, our life blood, our sustenance, our strength. Earth earns my highest, utmost respect. her power and might are so destroyed and disrespected, yet she remains ever true, ever providing soil for our foods, trees for our sustenance, water for our joy and refreshment; mother earth does not turn her back on us, although I cannot say the same as us for her.
death: that which we must all pass to; that which is a mystery and a fright as much as it is heaven and beauty and peace and pure nirvana. I go between fearing death and accepting death, in myself and my loved ones. Death comes too soon for many, not soon enough for others who suffer greatly, and too catastrophically for those who are unprepared.

I am such a thinker, a dweller on ideas and concepts, yet some of my best writings, my most vivid creations, come when I just allow the words to flow from me, as freely as a running stream, to cross over the rocks in its path, smoothing them on the way, but remaining every constant, ever free and flowing.