Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”
But how do you write things worth reading in a world where so few people are reading anymore?
Most of what is on the Internet is video and garbage. It’s not worth watching. Yet that’s the medium that we consume.
Perhaps the modern equivalent is to do things worth making a TikTok reel about.
Old Ben must be rolling in his grave.
The average human lifespan is about 80 years these days. That’s 4,160 weeks.
I got curious as to the percentage of my life I had left. So I did the math.
At 33 years old, I’ve lived about 1,716 weeks. If I’m lucky enough to make it to 80, I’ve already lived through 41% of my life.
That realization brought to mind an image of the battery icon at the top of my iPhone.
If I had that same icon floating over my head, I’d only have a 59% charge remaining before I died. And I can’t recharge…
Memento mori. Remember, you will die.
Use that as fuel to live well. Work and act accordingly.
The Stoics have a practice known as memento mori. It translates (loosely) to “remember you will die.”
I’ve thought of death just about every day that I can remember since I began to understand it as the ultimate destination of life.
But it became more real to me when I fell in love and got married. Because I realized a bittersweet truth:
I signed up for devastating grief.
My marriage was, eventually, going to end in death, either my own or my wife’s.***
And that’s a sobering thought. But it also serves as a constant reminder of just how wonderful love is. You can’t have one without the other.
All love, eventually, ends in sadness.
Teenagers break up. Adults get married, then someone dies… Or leaves. Family members lose each other slowly… Or sometimes all at once.
Ultimately, love ends because life ends.
But maybe that’s why it’s such a powerful element. Because we willingly dive headfirst into it knowing that it will end in the most painful way possible. One way or another.
I never really voiced this thought out loud until I came across this quote from Nick Cave:
“It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”
And it’s totally worth it.
***For those of you who say, “But your marriage could also end in divorce!”, you clearly don’t know Theresa or me. 🤣
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