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Maybe it does sound a bit frightning, but I think it is. Is our life nothing more than waiting for death to come?
I often think about this, and every time I have to realize that every second that passes, e.g. the seconds I use to write this, the seconds that you use to read this, we are closer to death. It makes me shiver when I think that death is the fate that still comes closer. I would like to discuss about this. Are you afraid of death? Is life just waiting for death?
Lin Yutang, on p. 37 ff. of his 'The Importance of Living wrote:I suspect that all democracy, all poetry, and all philosophy start out from this God-given fact that all of us, princes and paupers alike, are limited to a body of five or six feet and live a life of fifty or sixty years. On the whole, the arrangement is quite handy. We are neither too long nor too short. At least I am quite satisfied with five feet four. And fifty or sixty years seems to me such an awfully long time; it is, in fact, a matter of two or three generations. It is so arranged that when we are born, we see certain old grandfathers, who die in the course of time, and when
we become grandfathers ourselves, we see other tiny tots being born. That seems to make it just perfect.
[...]
Thus I see both poetry and philosophy began with the recognition of our mortality and a sense of the evanescence of time. This sense of life's evanescence is back of all Chinese poetry, as well as of a good part of Western poetry the feeling that life is essentially but a dream, while we row, row our boat down the river in the sunset of a beautiful afternoon, that flowers cannot bloom forever, the moon waxes and wanes, and human life itself joins the eternal procession of the plant and animal worlds in being born, growing to maturity and dying to make room for others. Man began to be philosophical only when he saw the vanity of this earthly existence. Chuangtse said that he once dreamed of being a butterfly, and while he was in the dream, he felt he could flutter his wings and everything was real, but that on waking up, he realized that he was Chuangtse and Chuangtse was real. Then he thought and wondered
which was really real, whether he was really Chuangtse dreaming of being a butterfly, or really a but-terfly dreaming of being Chuangtse. Life, then, is really a dream, and we human beings are like travelers floating down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking again at another point in order to make room for others waiting below the river to come aboard. Half of the poetry of life
would be gone, if we did not feel that life was either a dream, or a voyage with transient travelers, or merely a stage in which the actors seldom realized that they were playing their parts.
Seneca., Ep. I wrote:CONTINUE to act thus, my dear Lucilius - set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands. Make yourself believe the truth of my words, - that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness. Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose. What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death+; the major portion of death has already passed, Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands. Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow's. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity, - time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay. You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practising. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful. I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting, and the cause and manner of the loss; I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man. My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own: every one forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue. What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.
Wouldn't it be so much better if we knew the exact date on which we would die? Than you would have the chance to plan your life, live the days you have, and know how long you can postpone things, when you have to spend all that is left to you, to know when you have to leave the other people their life and no longer interfere? Just a thought...
Maybe it does sound a bit frightning, but I think it is. Is our life nothing more than waiting for death to come? I often think about this, and every time I have to realize that every second that passes, e.g. the seconds I use to write this, the seconds that you use to read this, we are closer to death. It makes me shiver when I think that death is the fate that still comes closer. I would like to discuss about this. Are you afraid of death? Is life just waiting for death?
Wouldn't it be so much better if we knew the exact date on which we would die? Than you would have the chance to plan your life, live the days you have, and know how long you can postpone things, when you have to spend all that is left to you, to know when you have to leave the other people their life and no longer interfere? Just a thought...
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