Death

You didn't think I'd just write about things like Marketing, Leadership, and Managing, in this blog did you? While suitable and engaging topics, none can hold a candle to the big Kahuna: Death.

Now, why? you may inquire, write about such a "morbid" and "depressing" topic? And my response is, what else is there to really write about?

Immutable. Inevitable. Unknown. The greatest mystery of life, and so on. Let's examine and try to go deep (as deep as I can anyway) and see where it takes us.

I'm getting older. I've had cancer over the past several years. Um, I'm a human (at least the last time I checked). So naturally my own mortality is, let's just say, becoming a bit more obvious; it's on my mind more. That being said, I've been contemplating death and dying for many years. 

My rumination began in my mid-30s when I came across The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. A good read about the overall place death has in the course of life, the actual process of dying, how to care for those who are dying, and ways to think about it; seriously think about it. The book also delves into some aspects of Buddhism; you know, impermanence, meditation, compassion, mindfulness, etc.

It helped me realize that not only is death inevitable, it's of course, along with birth, the most natural phase (if that word captures it) of the human lifespan. Certainly this phase can be anywhere between very short and very long. And it's different for everyone. Yet we all experience it at one time or another with family, friends, and all around us, even ourselves of course.

The book has a ton of great quotes too; my favorite is from Michel de Montaigne. I'll annotate it a bit and break it into digestible pieces as follows:

There is no place on earth where death cannot find us — even if we constantly twist our heads about in all directions as in a dubious and suspect land . . . [People] come and they go and they trot and they dance, and never a word about death. All well and good. Yet when death does come — to them, their [spouses], their children, their friends — catching them unawares and unprepared, then what storms of passion overwhelm them, what cries, what fury, what despair!

. . . To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.
. . . We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

-- Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (emphasis added by me). Rinpoche, Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, p. 15.

Or, more succinctly as stated by a great friend:

"We're all just riding the planet, and the last time I checked nobody gets off alive."

So there you go. I've added multiple links to my blog and popped in two quotes. Very spiffy. I'll try to refrain from overdoing both as we proceed.

With all of this in mind (and solidly embedded in mine in May 2023), you may think that when I received my initial cancer diagnosis, that I responded with nothing less than pure equanimity. Far from it! I was at first a bit neutral to the whole idea, knowing my family history as well as my own personal genetic makeup (see: Lynch syndrome; "syndrome" makes it sound rather dramatic but it's just genetics which govern the biological vicissitudes to which we are all subject). But as it sank in, I experienced a good deal of fear, anxiety, and stress, all related to thoughts of my own death, what it would mean, what I would lose, what others might lose, and so on. Ugh.

Anyway, now that we (hopefully) have a (little clearer) understanding of life's most significant and mysterious phenomenon, what should we do with it? I would offer the following:

1. See every day as an opportunity. And I know that sounds so pithy and all but is far from easy to actually do. Nonetheless, try your best and let me know how it goes.
2. When you have to deal with perplexing people, whackos at work, frazzled family -- basically other people -- as yourself the following: "Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and everything and everyone else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion?" -- Rinpoche, Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, p. 27. (Or something like that; you get the idea. And I'd say this is beyond aspirational because I've tried it when dealing with, for me, the worst people I've ever run into, and it was mostly ineffective).
3. If/when you are comfortable, contemplate the constant, ever-changing nature of everything and everyone around you -- including YOURSELF --, and embrace this change as fully beyond your control. Extend your thinking from there (just try if you can) and comprehend it as the natural process that generates, sustains, and gives meaning to both life and death.

With some effort, it may lead to a lot less anxiety and a lot more freedom.