Today, I watched someone die on the street! Maybe, that’s not really accurate; I was looking at a few ambulance workers and police officers trying to reanimate someone. His colleagues were standing near the scene. I heard the guy was 38 years old. Not in a top physical condition probably, cause I saw his rather big belly shake quite visibly, whenever his chest was pressed down. It was at some level a surreal image. Probably, I chose to dehumanize him, by focusing on his body fat. Seeing an object shake is less painful than seeing a dying man struggling to make his last stand. So what happened to him? Apparently, he had a heart attack…just like that, on some regular sunny Monday morning.
In my life, I have experienced a lot of death around me. But I had never seen the drama of life and death as concrete as this. I’m deeply impressed by this experience. I am not sorry for that guy; I only hope that he’d had a good life. Why? Death is the only certain fact of life. Perhaps, death is one element that helps us define life. Would we have the same or any conception of life, if it would not to be ended by death? Sometimes we can only understand things, when we are familiar with their opposite. So why would I dislike death?
Our death watches us constantly. It’s always somewhere around the corner. It can happen anywhere and any time. We all know it. But we don’t really want to think about it, do we? Maybe we want to avoid anxiety, maybe we believe it wouldn’t really matter if we think about it or not. But the truth is, we have no time left. We are running out of time, every minute we lose ourselves in laziness, rationalizations, justifications and ignorance. I don’t know what the ultimate goal of life is: buying oneself a ticket to the heaven, reaching the nirvana, making a lot of money, indulging our senses, becoming a better human being or simply reproduction…. Whatever you think you should be after, pursuit it now, cause the guy who died today thought it would be just another day… exactly like what you and I think tomorrow would be.
4 comments:
A great man once said (free translation): "Take without illusions, leave without difficulties".
You can't always live life to the max...but it shure helps if you try. Every day is different than the past and you can always try to be more than you were,better than you are and greater than you immagine.
Who was that great man?
Emperor Marcus Aurelius Catilus Severus, a stoicus.
Was torn between his philosophy and the things he had to do for Rome.
Is he that old dude in "Gladiator"? ha ha
Thanks for the reference.
Post a Comment