Unlocked: In This Present Moment (Patreon)

By Sam 

Can we know that life is meaningful without the assurance that there will be an eternal tomorrow? That this is all we've got?

Can thinking of death itself not be morbid and suicidal but deeply spiritual? Can meditating on death teach us how to value life?

Perhaps if we do not fear this reflection on death, we can live a good life—and eventually a good death.

Perhaps it is this belief that there is more than this life that denies us the opportunity to seize the life we already have. Then, without the belief that everything will sort itself out when we're dead, we have no choice but to sort things out now. Because this time around may be the only time around.

In 23 BCE, Roman poet Horace wrote, "carpe diem;" translated, it means "seize the day." So what happened since then to now? How did we lose sight of what is inevitable? That life is precious? Why is the painfully obvious, that we have to take care of ourselves and one another now so radical?

The past, literally, is a fictionalized narrative our brain pieces and edits together. You can't measure or quantify the past because it is already over. The future is abstract predictions and guesses; it does not yet exist and unlike the past, has never existed. What is tangible is now. Yet it is ubiquitous and pervasive to live in before and after pictures. But never in the moments in which the pictures are being taken.

Much of the non-Western world only speak in present-tense. We in the West think that is strange, yet it is strange to speak any other way than in the present because only now exists. The future is a luxury. To believe things will automatically get better in the future is a fantasy that robs us of the opportunity to make things better now. When we live only in the future, we miss what's happening now. 

Life is worth living because we are alive. Life is rare because we'll die. That's automatic. In between life and death is empty space for meaning. That's something we get to add.

And what about a good death? We can never appreciate our own death. It's not for us. It is for those around us, to inspire them, to live now, not to waste what exists only once, not to spoil it for those who have yet to have their now.

If you enjoyed this bonus article, please consider becoming a Southpaw supporter.