I think about death.
The antithesis to everything we know and everything that is.
The one thing we can’t study or anecdotally recount as an experience. Mystery
intrigues, and what greater mystery is there? It’s the wellspring of tension, a
countdown clock on existence.
Whatever it is in life you fear, it probably pales in
comparison to the dragon of death. Hell, more than likely the things that
invoke fear in you are derivatives of the big sleep itself.
So you’re going to die. I know… it’s rough. Don’t worry though;
I’m going to die too.
Our deaths will severely affect a handful of friends and
family members, sadden a somewhat larger social group, and kickstart the
perfunctory grievance language of acquaintances and colleagues. And a handful of decades after we go, few people will remember we were ever here. Two or three
generations down the line and our existence will be lost in the sands of time, pushed
to permanence only as long as the software that catalogued us remains.
At some point…on one specific day, your name will be spoken
aloud for the last time.
But that’s not all as tragic as it sounds.
Because honestly, who cares about a story with no
conclusion?
The ancient Greeks thought the Olympian gods pitiful on
account of their immortality.
After all, what are the stakes if you have
infinity to the play the game?
Death creates meaning. The end is the catalyst for living,
not merely existing.
What keeps me up at night is not the fact of my mortality,
but the conception of my deathbed. I think about my final moments and what I’ll
remember looking back. I wonder if I’ll see a life of half-measures and
regrets. A life lived in fear of rejection or failure. Or will I see a life
that embraced challenge, one that dared to sail in the turbulent winds of
fate and fortune.
Did I do everything I could with what I had?
Was I able to break beyond limitations that I set for
myself?
Had I lived as a coward or as contender?
I consider death and worry more about what I‘ll have done with
my life than clinging onto existence itself.
I think about death and damn if it doesn't make me want to live.
Really live.
- Hagakure.
