The Terrible Adventure

If you are a person, you have probably been afraid of death at some point.

It's strange to me that a creature could have this happen to them. Elephants, whales, lizards, and a whole host of other creatures apart from us morn the loss of a friend. But none do it for as long or as elaborately.

Then again, who knows, really, what it is an elephant thinks about behind its tired grey skin and its tired grey eyes? Maybe they morn for their whole lives. Those lives generally last longer than ours. Around ninety years. Maybe they, too, fear some reaper that will come for all in the end.

I'm not trying to be that annoying life insurance salesman. I'm just thinking about the oddness of life insurance. These are my three favorite quotes about death:

"Death is likely the single best invention of life,"
- Steve Jobs

"I am become death; destroyer of worlds,"
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (Who was himself quoting the religious text "The Bhagavad Gita")

"Death is the great democracy,"
- Neil Gaiman

You can look up those men's quotes in google if you are more interested in their context.

But, I will say this. The first is about the inevitability and frightening aspect of death, yet its use and necessity to life and change. The second is about the power of death, and the fear that comes with that power. And the third is about living amongst death, knowing it is always there, and feeling no apprehension about it.

Life, not death, is the greatest, most terrible adventure. Maybe when I become old I will lose my iron hate for the way things must die or change. In life, no matter how wretched, there are so very many possibilities. In death there are none, always. And I intend to change a few more times before I stop changing forever.

Do you? Well, intend or not, you will. Fear that. Not your mortality.

Will you look back on your life, and find that the past is a foreign land?

"All that happened in another country and besides, the wench is dead."

- Christopher Marlowe