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| Do you think death is a monster? |
Being comfortable with death is
very important in my belief system. I could have whiled away my time without a
care, or I would have lived in inertia and fear - if I could pretend that death
doesn’t matter, that death is a phenomenon which is a far away possibility and
I need not think of it now, when I am 24 and is going through possibly the highest
point of my youth. But I can not think death is far away, having almost
encountered it a few times, and seeing men and women, much younger and perhaps
more deserving than me to live, dying meaninglessly. Death will come, and no
one can predict how early or how late.
The inevitable possibility of my death is my best weapon - I
use it to destroy my fears. What am I afraid of? I am afraid of not trying
things that I want to do before I die, not of failure. Death will erase the
slate clean anyway. I must fill up the canvas with every kind of stroke that I
can imagine - and make a picture emerge - rich, bold, and beautiful. At least I
must try. I must resist inertia, I must not play safe, I must do what I believe
in instead of making cheap compromises.
I have drawn much from the stoic philosophy to build my belief system over years - and here's something that may interest you: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/24/on-the-shortness-of-life-an-introduction-to-seneca/
Have you read a manga called Deathnote? Much of what you said in the post is coincidentally similar to the subtext of it. The manga depicts the concepts of Death and repercussions arising from the fear of it. Nice post though!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment - no i havent read any manga yet. This, I think, has been a theme for many great works, including the graduation speech by steve jobs as a friend of mine pointed out over email - but as I said in the article, my primary source of inspiration while writing this has been the stoic philosophy - which dates back to thousand of years.
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