Meditations Pt. 8
It doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you have left to be done, somewhere there is someone who would kill you for a thousand dollars or for a vile of crack or for getting in their way. A car could hit you in an intersection and drive your teeth back into your skull.
Its a fun question to say “What would I change about my life if the doctor told me I had cancer?” And then we go “Well thank God I don’t have cancer.” We do. That death sentence has already been decreed. Every second probability is eating away at the chances that you’ll be alive tomorrow; something is coming and you’ll never be able to stop it. All I have is to be ready for when that day comes–to be able to say “I would have liked to go a little longer, but this works too.”
This sort of thinking also helps keep me out of bad moods. I think to myself, “If I were to die right now, would I really want it to happen with this much hatred inside me?”
There is definitely something to be said about treasuring the notion of death.
Just curious, are you familiar with the work of Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey?
Short video at TED:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39
Long video at Google:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8554766938711591377&hl=en
Also, there’s his book which you can find on Amazon. I recommend it. The biology can get technical, but I already know you like challenging books.