I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more – the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joy, to perils, to love, to vain effort – to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in a handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires. – Joseph Conrad, “Youth,” (1898)

It is often said that the youth do dumb things because they believe themselves immortal – perhaps so – but in my youth I did dumb things because I knew well the impending doom of death and had no healthy way to deal with that. When I was 21 I did a college program at Walt Disney World. One day my manager asked why I wasn’t smiling and I honestly answered, “because I’m having an extensional crisis.” She had no clue what to do and so simply left me to it. But that existential crisis stretched way back to grade school, Roman Catholic grade school, where one day during religion class, it suddenly became clear that the concept of heaven that I’d been taught and believed in had no basis whatsoever in any known fact. What did become clear were three things:

  1. I and everyone else would die
  2. There is nothing that I or anyone else can do about it
  3. No one knows what comes after. No one.

I can remember many occasions when my sisters wanted to hang out with their friends, while I want to spend time with my grandmother and parents because their mortality was clear and could happen at any moment. How, I felt, could any thinking person react otherwise? I’ve never felt immortal – at least as far as I can remember. I suppose I must have at one point, though, just didn’t know it. I never felt like, “it’ll happen to someone else, not me,” – no, it always felt like it would 100% happen to me. That’s obviously an extreme, but, in balance, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

We in the modern West hide death, do our best to pretend it away – just like in video games, there’s always another life, or restart button. We should hold up death every day, in a clear, factual way, and know that it will 100% touch us, and everyone we pass on the street. If we could do so I think we would be kinder and more compassionate, and realize how much time that we waste on useless, empty nonsense. When you are going to be lying on your deathbed, if you’re lucky enough to have a deathbed, what do you think you’re going to wish that you were done more up with your time? Watched more TV shows? Collected more Funko Pops?

Let’s start today, I can begin – hi, my name is Greg, and I am going to die, and so are you. Let’s make the most of every moment, and love each other as much as we can.