On Mortality

Thoughts about our morality shouldn’t depress us. Rather, it should energize us to make the most of the life we have.

As I age and friends around me deal with physical challenges far worse than I’ve yet experienced, mortality is on my mind lately. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid of my inevitable demise. These aren’t morbid thoughts. Rather, I see it as a staring into the face of obvious reality.

What comes to mind is a quote attributed to Marcus Aurelius, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Maybe I’m letting the truth that my presence on this mortal plane is temporary guide me in terms of what I now do, say, and think.

The milestone of 70 years of age approaching next year might also be part of why my mind mulls over death. Hmm. Death. That word is so much more final that all the euphemisms we ascribe to it. But it is ultimately death that we all face, sooner or later. No one gets off this planet alive.

I don’t believe we go to a better place. I gave up the notion of an afterlife long ago. The concept of soul as a continuing entity would be comforting if I believed it. But I don’t. Many do and I gladly allow them that comfort. Maybe they’re correct about all that. But I oddly find comfort in death being final in the absolute sense of the word.

Since I spent my 30s and 40s amid the worst of the AIDS pandemic with dozens of friends and a partner dying, you’d think I’d be entirely comfortable with the reality of death. Comfortable isn’t a good word anyway. Is anyone really comfortable with death? Is calm a better word? Resigned? Regardless, I’m rather fine with facing death head on.

Of course, I have no desire to die anytime soon. Since I was a teenager I’ve often said I plan to live until 100. I still do. That would give me about 30 more years to do some cool stuff whether that’s write, learn, travel, socialize, or have fabulous sex (yes, many of us older people still do often have robust sex lives).

On Maria Popova’s brilliant blog, The Marginalian, she writes this in her post, “The Last Wonder: D.H. Lawrence on Death and the Best Lifelong Preparation for It.”

“To study philosophy is to learn to die,” Montaigne wrote in his most famous essay as he reckoned with how to live…