Tag Archives: death

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Death walks in front of you

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I heard a phrase many years ago, I don’t remember the source or the exact wording so this is not exactly a quote.  Death walks in front of you, so slow down you don’t want to catch up.

I think the more common view is death is stalking us from behind.  The opposite of this, the idea of slowing down so you don’t catch death is intriguing to me.

Contemplation

As with so many of my posts, events of the day often become the topic.  I just found out that one of my closest university friends (and my wifes roommate) died.

She was my age and of course this can bring thoughts of my own mortality.  We were not close in recent years but I did know her well.  This led me to the opening quote.

Death and Taxes

I just completed my annual tax return yesterday so there is an interesting symetry to the two events, death and taxes, being the things often stated as inevitable.

Of course change is probably the most truly inevitable occurance in everyones life and death does fall into that category.  It is a very significant change.

A Life Enjoyed

Not catching up with death is not intended to imply avoidence but rather it is about focus.  Enjoy each moment, don’t rush, there will, at some unknown point, be an ending.

It just is.  You can’t stop it, so little point in chasing it down.  A line from one of my favorite Black Sabbath songs can be perverted to express this sentiment.

Enjoy, don’t waste your life “Killing yourself to live”.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The Endless Search

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During my high school days I had a personal goal to determine the meaning of life.  Not the Monty Phython  variety which was more tongue in check, but a logical rational explanation.

God Explains All

During my early childhood there was an attempt to indoctrinate me into a belief that God explained all.  Simplistically man was created in gods image, mankinds purpose (the meaning of life) was to serve god.

My own observations led me to the conclusion that god was an artifact invented by other humans  to both satisfy their own need for meaning as well, for those with  less scruples to leverage as a power base.

The Search Continues

So far, my own experience is that the search for meaning is endless.  The purpose of my own life has ultimately become; “to search for meaning”.

That is to say the action of searching is both the purpose and meaning of my life.  The search itself has no result beyond more searching.

The actions associated with the search give me pleasure and realization my purpose lies in more searching, that is what I do and I enjoy it.

The End

This personal solution to the meaning of life is gratifying but it does not explain the ending; i.e., death.  If death is linked to the meaning of life, searching endlessly stops at death.

What then is the purpose of death?  To stop the cycle of endless searching?  If that is the case, as with all questions around meaning – why?

So while the meaning of life being an endless search for answers is satisfying me at the moment, I wonder if this will change with time.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

When time runs out

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Everyone dies and you could say this is when your available time has run out.  There is no more time for you to do or experience anything on earth.

Always enough time

Time is a facinating resource to manage .  As long as you are alive there is always more time available.  Planning your death, or when time stops for you is not an average occurance.

At some point, usually unplanned, though not always unexpected (in the case of a long illness or just natural aging) death arrives and your earthly time is over.

No one knows for sure if time continues after death in some other form.  Interestingly, for most, the end of time is not anticipated in the immediate present.

How often have you thought, “there will be time to do that later”.  That may or may not be a true thought.  The risk of your time ending abruptly is probably low, but it could happen.

Managing Time

Given our availble time on earth is limited should we allow this to influence how we spend time today?  Should we worry about running out of time before we complete our bucket list?

Living in the Moment

I have always been a big believer in seeking maximum pleasure for myself as long as it does not impinge on the pleasure of others.

So for me, worrying about how to spend my future time or fearing that I won’t get to everything  is not critical to my pleasure, or lack thereof,  so is not an issue for me.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The Art of Dying

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On my drive to work this morning an old George Harrison song was played on the radio.  It is from the “All Things Must Pass” album of which I had bought a copy back in 1973 ( the original release date)

I had not listened to the song in years and found myself really listening, particularly to the lyrics.  This time around I wondered “What is this about”.

Previous listens to the song focused on the music and the tunefulness of the lyrics, much more so than the meaning.  Maybe because I am older and closer to death, the meaning of the lyrics really peaked my interest this morning

A spiritual concept

Following a read through the lyrics and a little research (what would we do without Google) I determined the main theme of the song.   It is based on the Hindu concept of reincarnation.

Simply stated, if your soul is not ready to rise to Heaven on your death (due to too much Karmic debt) you are reincarnated.  The cycle continues until you have mastered the ” Art of Dying” and your soul is finally free of the material world.

Death is Inevitable

What initially attracted my attention to the song this morning was the underlying philosophy that life is not really about the art of living but rather should focus on the enevitable conclusion of life, no one escapes – death.

An interesting perspective, your live is perhaps best spent preparing for death, that is, teaching yourself the art of dying .