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4 April 2024 - Ascona
The Stoics have a saying momento mori which means remember death, that is, remember that it's inevitable and happens to everyone to help focus your priorities. Most religion religions, however, offer an afterlife, whether that's heaven, hell, nirvana, or reincaration. As a species we're kind of obsessed over it. I recently learned about the illness of someone close who's close to my age and facing a diagnosis that gives him years, not decades. We mused over the most common doctor's advice for most "preventable" illness: lose weight and drink less. Sacrifice some joy now for holding off the grim reaper for a few more years. Both my grandfathers died in their mid-sixties when I was young and I figured that was my life expectancy too, so I've always tried to live that way. When my dad died around the same age I kinda felt like that proved my theorem. He had his first heart attack at 50 and took drastic measures to reduce his weight, but the lost joy of food meant nothing when he got cancer. The "preventable" illnesses that took my grandfathers were being overweight and smoking, so I've avoided both to the best of my abilities. I've never smoked a cigarette, but in my 30's I started indulging in the occasional cigar - often with years in between. Since my twenties, however, my weight has been a struck. Rather than give up the joy of food and drinking though, I added the joy of running. 25 kilometers a week seems to be the magic number to maintain my weight these days, but I really should bring it down.
Thinking about death mostly doesn't terrify me though. Realizing its inevitability is a perspective that's lead me to rush through some things. Like getting married and having two kids as a teenager. Like my intense wanderlust and voracious consumption of books. If you manage to read 50 books a year throughout your adult life and live to 65 that's 2600 books. That's also the number of weekends you get. And you have to visit over three new countries a year on average to hit them all before you die. Roughly 15,000 dinners - is it enough time to have all the conversations you want? And how many will you eat alone like the one I did tonight? How many chances will you have to love? How many times will you have your heart broken? Momento mori. And how many of your hours will you waste on regrets about things that have happened and worries about things that might or might not rather than enjoying the present moment?
Looking down on the city from my run up the hill this afternoon
I must end this somber blog with a funny anecdote. This morning going to find a coffee shop to work in I passed a lonely suitcase by a bustop. I thought to myself, What poor person is having a bad day and forgot this? Should I take it in somewhere and leave it in a lost and found? But where? The busstop was in front of a gas station. And then I chuckled to myself thinking if this was an airport then the cops would go nuts over a suspicious package. Fast forward to four hours later when I'm heading back to my hotel and the police have cordoned off and evacuated several city blocked. As I entered my hotel just outside the area I could see in the distance a man in full body armor piloting a robot to inspect the suitcase. Excited children watching jumped and threw up their hands while made booming noises to mimic the explosion they thought they might see. Cops see and overestimate threats in so many situations, which really isn't funny if they decide you're a threat. But when they're treating a forgotten suitcase as a deadly opponent I can't help but laugh at the absurdity.
