What do you think causes the majority of our existential angst?
A. Knowing we’re going to die (and not wanting to)
B. Not knowing exactly when we will die
C. Not knowing exactly how we will die
D. All of the above?
I struggle with all of the above.
But today I was having a conversation with myself that went like this:
Let’s say we are somehow able to accept we will die.
Not just understand it intellectually, but actually accept it.
And let’s say, by some magical twist, we are able to learn exactly when and how we will die…
Would we really live our life any differently than we do today?
And, what would World Order look like then?
(I don’t really talk to myself in the third person, by the way.)
There is a phrase:
But the essential problem with that advice is that gleefully dancing as if nobody’s watching is not really an option if the machine is to keep running.
Quite the contrary, living each day as if it’s not our last is what allows us to pack the school lunches and separate the laundry and spend an hour with the accountant without feeling as if our life is completely pathetic.
We count on tomorrow being better.
= = = =
Most of us live –because we must — as if we have an endless supply of days.
And, yet, we’re terrified each and every day because we know that we don’t.
That is quite a quandary.
No one wants to be a machine.
Yet no one feels comfortable abandoning everything and everyone so they may live their last day every day.
This is the majority of our existential angst:
Finding the absolute perfect balance between living your last day and living as if you have an endless supply.
