Death Meditation IX

Daily Meditation #151–7/23/2022

From the moment you burst from the womb, screaming and covered in goo you are clawing and pulling with all your might to try to escape the grave like a zombie.

And you really are a zombie.
You are living but you aren’t living.

Each day could be your last, but you don’t consider this. You eat your fill of filth, sit on the couch hours each day with a vacant expression, and abscond yourself from all responsibilities, letting these many little avoidances pill up in your mind.

Then, one day, your doctor tells you you’ve got late stage cancer.

“Me? How?” you ask, as if the answer was inobvious or elusive.

And there you are, topfull of regret and anger. “What about my children!” you exclaim, “my parents and spouse!”

Well — what about them?

Instead of spending every day scraping and clamoring to escape the inevitable gravity pulling you into the grave, succumb to the reality of your mortality.

Climb down into the grave. Close your eyes. Meditate deeply on the fact this will become your body’s eventual home — along with your spouse, your parents, friends, and children.

It may be tomorrow, maybe next year. But, no matter when, you will all die.

Embrace death, enjoy mortality.

After all — it is only with limitations that power means anything at all.

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”