Two ideas from two great thinkers to kick start your week.
Since the beginning of human consciousness, our awareness of death has terrified us. This terror has shaped our beliefs, our religions, our institutions, and so much of our behavior in ways we cannot see or understand. We humans have become the slaves to our fears and our evasions.
When we turn this around, becoming more aware of our mortality, we experience a taste of true freedom. We no longer feel the need to restrict what we think and do, in order to make life predictable. We can be more daring without feeling afraid of the consequences. We can cut loose from all the illustrations and addictions that we employ to our numb our anxiety. We can commit fully to our work, to our relationships, to all our actions. And once we experience some of this freedom, we will want to explore further and expand our possibilities as far as time will allow us.” - Robert Greene, “The Laws of Human Nature”
And,
Let us rid death of its strangeness, come to know it, get used to it. Let us have nothing on our minds as often as death. At every moment let us picture it in our imagination in all its aspects…. It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it in everywhere. Premeditations of death is premeditation of freedom…. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die free from all subjection and constraint.” - Michel de Montaigne.
It feels morbid because we have been conditioned to see it as morbid - to fear it, to not talk about it, to see it as a dark. Truly, it’s not.
If you have been a faithful reader of this blog, you know that during October-November, I have stopped writing. That often happens because I lose motivation… and it appears I lose motivation during the season change. Is that a medical condition? Who knows. During this month, I decided to meditate daily on my mortality.
I remind myself, each night, that I might not wake up, and that the relationships most dear to me may end at any time. I find that when I wake up, I am filled with a tremendous amount of joy to be alive and motivated to do the next thing.
Then, when I’m doing the next thing, such as writing, I remind myself, “the next second is not guaranteed, and that I must pump out as much of my consciousness as I can leave behind for others.” Through that meditation, I realize the energy needed to focus and ship work.
I am a slave to what I avoid, and I choose no longer to be a slave.
The thing you and I share in common is our mortality - we will eventually die. That also means we also share another thing in common - a desire to live life to its most, to be our most effective selves each moment of each day.
You don’t have to be a slave to what you avoid. Welcome fate with open arms - love life.