“Philosophy has taught [us] to be grateful for life and yet unafraid of dying.” -Donald Robertson
Death occupies the dissonant space comprised of things that are both discomfort-inducing and yet entirely natural. It is life’s natural constant, and yet we’re terrified by it. We fear death because we feel it threatens something—likely a reality we’ve yet to realize, or one of which we’re just on the brink. Rather than fearing the inevitability that is death, perhaps we should fear not living in such a way that, when death approaches, we can face it contentedly.
It could be said that many people who fear death aren’t living in a manner that justifies that fear. Our tendency to be jolted into action only when we sense a window of opportunity closing indicates our general comfort with coasting. We coast until we can’t anymore, until someone holds us accountable or until our livelihoods depend on taking an action we’ve put off. Our aim, however, is to not require extreme circumstances to show up for our lives.
There’s an excellent clip of a New York woman approaching the entrepreneur and zealous business personality Gary Vaynerchuk in his vehicle. Gary rolls down his window and the woman asks for one piece of motivational advice. Without hesitation Gary says, “You’re going to die.” She instantly gets it and thanks him, skipping off into what likely became a highly energized phase of her life.
In essence, what Gary communicated in those four words was, get your priorities in order and act on them urgently. What reason is there not to?
And what reason is there not to? The element of life’s vastness that many are hesitant to acknowledge is that in the grandest scheme, nearly everything becomes insignificant. Some people over-index on this and choose to do nothing at all, but far too few people convert the seeming harshness of grand-scheme-insignificance into a tool, a freedom to live out their fullest selves knowing that one day all returns to dust. In other words, we live and operate confidently not to be remembered (a futile effort, per the Stoics), but because we know we’ll be forgotten. It’s the difference between, “You’re going to die, why try?” and “You’re going to die, why not try?” The latter view offers a chance at leading an invigorated life—a life with an end you can face contentedly. Grand scheme insignificance frees us to be everything, anything, and nothing.
“Close is the time when you will forget all things; and close, too, the time when all will forget you.” -Marcus Aurelius
One of the themes most prominent in Stoic texts, from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations to Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, is that of the universe’s unending change. They implore us to think of all who came before us, and all who will come after, reminding us of the minuscule span of time we occupy. This is not to diminish our meaning, but to contextualize it, freeing us from any unproductive over-identification with the temporary.
Distilled down to its most useful parts, a right view of death enables two things: 1). freedom from over-identification with (and the overvaluing of) the temporary, and 2). a regular awareness of priorities and the actions that align with them, the latter being akin to a mindset common among survivors. People who have gone through near-death experiences tend to emerge from them with a new lease on life. They came face to face with what they risked losing, and now feel a renewed compulsion to honor or embrace that thing. Though it need not take a physical brush with death to incite such a perspective. Its natural, inevitable reality should be sufficient for the clarification of exactly what our priorities and desires are, and the subsequent scrutiny of whether our actions align. A person living in accordance with their values, their principles, and their priorities is unlikely to expend energy rebelling against a thing that’s on its way to all of us.
Think of how old you are while reading this, and how quickly it seems you arrived there. Life’s journey is slow in the moment and fast in retrospect, the end destination the same for all. The only thing in your direct control is the intent you bring to the space in between.
“Why should I be concerned about anything else than how one day I shall ‘turn again to earth’? And why, indeed, should that trouble me? For dispersal will be my lot whatever I do.” -Marcus Aurelius
For dispersal will be our lot, whatever we do. Death evades no one, and so we wield our lives thoughtfully, intentionally, and responsibly while we have them. And we encourage the same in others, particularly those who depend on us.
If there were a noble reason to avoid death (read: one unentangled with the self and the discontinuance of temporal pleasures), chief among them is not wanting to leave others who may depend on you, emotionally or otherwise, in a lesser state—parents of growing children, for example, whose lives would be undeniably compromised without them. (I’m of the belief that there is a pure way to recognize this, wholly separate from a notion of inflated self-importance.) As in all things, however, preparedness is key. You prepare those who rely on you to be resilient in your absence, you put things in place to secure their safety and wellbeing. There is, of course, no replacement for a caregiver, no amount of security that can fill the emotional void left by a lost parent or loved one, but an acceptance of death as part of life’s natural cycle—and breeding this in others—may help to subdue unhealthy responses to tragedy. You can aim to live a life of such impact (in your sphere or beyond) that its loss would be felt, but within that, strive for one so marked by a dutiful acceptance of its inevitable end that others are moved to hold a similar perspective, honoring their space of time accordingly.
As everything has a season, so does the individual. Your season, in the macro, is your life, and as the seasons pass, so too will you. In a paraphrasing of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, don’t ask yourself how long you’ll live, but rather, how you’ll live.
"As you engage in each particular action, stop and ask yourself this question: Is death something terrible because I would be deprived of this?" -Marcus Aurelius
We are now tasked with auditing our lives. The necessity of the mundane and life’s natural ebbs and flows aside, does your life, by and large, reflect that which is congruent with your deepest held intent? Marcus Aurelius offers us a litmus test, imploring us to ask ourselves if death would be something terrible because we'd be deprived of this—this activity, this argument, this community. Our answer should direct us to either savor it—to be present and grateful, recognizing it will pass—or discard it, weighting it accordingly and allotting it no more time than its worth. A contented approach to death requires that we steward our lives in a way that accords with our deepest held intents. In so doing, death may not be something terrible, but rather, a natural end to a life well-ordered.
“It’s only when you’re afraid of life that you fear death. It’s only dead people who fear death. But people who are alive have no fear of death.” -Anthony de Mello