And So it Goes
There are those who will tell you that they live their lives as if there is no tomorrow. Since you can die at any time, you should make the most of each day and cherish every moment. I used to be one of those people.
As a teen, I was sure I wouldn’t live past 18. I recall one night cruising with my best friend, Wayne, in his ’70 Monte Carlo, as we often did. As we pulled up to his house at the end of the night, I told him, quite seriously, that when I died I wanted all of our friends to get smashed. And I asked that he make sure I was buried with a bottle of Jack, my guitar, and a picture of my first love, who had recently dumped me. He joked it off at first, until I insisted. Then he sincerely assured me he’d take care of it. Somehow, despite all of the stupid stuff we did, we both survived our teens.
By the time I hit my twenties, I had lost the morbid certainty that I would die young, but I still believed in taking life one day at a time. I don’t know when I finally started looking to, and planning for, the future. But it wasn’t early enough.
That whole “live every minute as if it were your last”, or “you only live once,” way of thinking is quite appealing. You might say it’s romantic. Or adventurous. It evokes the image of a carefree spirit, someone who loves life and desires to enjoy it to the fullest. The reality is that it too often is simply a justification to shirk responsibility. It’s the perfect motto for the rebel without a cause. The authorities might not be happy that Johnny sped his motorcycle through the city at 3 am, so drunk he could hardly see straight. But some of his friends understand that he might die tomorrow, so why not have fun today?
Death surrounds us. It’s always there. When it’s not affecting us directly in the loss of a loved one, it’s still there peripherally, on the news or in gossip from friends. Unless you’re stranded on a deserted island, you aren’t going to escape it. And so we all try to deal with it, to accept it in a way that makes personal sense. And for each individual, how we deal with death and, by extension, how we choose to live our lives, will change as time passes and we adapt to our own experiences.
I no longer strictly adhere to that “I might die tomorrow” philosophy. The realization came that, statistically, I’m more likely to live for quite a while than I am to die tomorrow. From that perspective, it makes more sense to prepare for the future. When I do die, I won’t be missing anything. So what if I never made it to Paris or Rome? In death, I won’t know and it won’t matter. But if I find myself at 70 years old, flat broke because I spent all of my money living like there’s no tomorrow, I will know and it will matter. So now I put more priority on the future in most aspects of my life. But in others, I still live for the present. It’s a balance I’ve struck that works well for me.
While it would be gratifying to admonish others to follow the same philosophy, it wouldn’t be practical. In my twenties, I ignored anyone who tried to lay it on me. It was a point of view I couldn’t comprehend at that point in my life. But it wasn’t because of my age. I’ve seen plenty twenty-somethings who abhor living for today. No, like everything else in our lives, our view of life and death is largely shaped by our life experiences. Sure, when you’re older you’ve got more experiences to draw on, but in this case I think it’s more about the quality of the experiences, (the impact they have) rather than the quantity. And, when it comes down to it, there really isn’t a right way.
And so life marches on. We live our lives, evolve our attitudes and outlooks, and then we die. We argue about politics, religion, freedom, human rights, territory, sports and so much more. We take pleasure in things great and small, and surround ourselves with a circle of friends and family, some moreso than others. While we do this, many of our fellows fall each day, just outside of our vision. From those we never knew to those who touched us all. Sometimes, we move on immediately. Other times, we take a little while. Some never move on at all. But in the end, for most of us, the knowledge of death does not impede the progress of life.
It would be wonderful if we could treat each other with kindness, dignity and respect for the little time we are here. It seems like a lost cause, though. After all, religions and moral codes have been teaching us for millenia to love our neighbors, and yet people are still trying to kill each other in the name of one religion or another. Perhaps in the distant future, humans will achieve a state of social serenity in which death by man-made causes will be a relic of the past. Until then, we’ll keep living with death in all of its forms and dealing with it as best as we know how.