In Defiance of Death

Preparing you for your fight against the inevitable

Leighton Peart
Nov 4 · 3 min read
Botticelli’s Map of Hell (1490) via florenceinferno.com

You and I both know it is coming. It is the end. It is the cessation of suffering as well as the product of suffering. Death can be a political message. It is an existential necessity. It is a philosophical position: how could we understand life without understanding death? Each and every one of us may have a different definition for death but you cannot deny that it affects us all. As saddening as death can be, it can also be a source of immense hope and a powerfully unifying force. When someone close to us dies, they are given a memorial service where people speak of the deceased. Memories are shared and respects are given to commemorate a life once lived. When a billionaire who exploited poor people in a far off country we can’t pronounce dies, people rejoice. Death has many interpretations. Even then, there will be people who are happy someone died; those who feel nothing towards it, and those who are saddened by it. Death can, and often does, invoke a multitude of feelings.

I am writing to you about your triumphant stand against the inevitable. Your time will come, but I am here to tell you to remain steadfast and prepare your defenses. This is not a treatise on why you should start to eat better and work out more. This is me outlining to you why it is important to live your life authentically. In the words of Marcus Aurelius: you could leave this life tomorrow.

Inversely, why give a shit about this life in front of you? Life is a game you can never win. It doesn’t matter how rich, beautiful, intelligent you are — you are still subject to dissolution. No one takes their riches to the grave with them. Even still, people are buried in fancy mausoleums and have diamond encrusted tombstones. All for what? This grasping at life actually makes life harder to live. We try incredibly hard to extend our lives. Stem cell research and the ethical issues that arise with that; “biohacking” and other buzzwords created to sell commodities populate public & private discourses. Why do we do this? The future is terrifying. Some of us pay insurance our whole lives without ever getting into a car accident. What if? is a powerful sentiment and it has been commercially weaponized.

Life is suffering, and this suffering never seems to leave us alone — it always finds its way back. And when we are happy, those moments are short and quick passing. It seems as if we spend the majority of our lives in pain. But to acknowledge that pain is to begin to create resistance to it. Sisyphus was sentenced to push a rock up a hill just for it to roll back down. He had to do that for eternity. After a while, it became second nature to him. He got used to the suffering, possibly even getting enjoyment from a situation that most would perceive as heinous or negative. Viktor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, speaks about how prisoners being held in the Auschwitz death camps were able to lead a “normal” life, despite their dire circumstances. They laughed, held concerts, played card games in the most deplorable conditions imaginable. These examples illustrate our capacity to be resilient, even in the face of the most terrible oppression like the Holocaust. Suffering is everywhere, but you can learn to use that to your advantage.

When we die, there is no afterlife. In the words of Kodo Sawaki, this life is our last and final refuge. Our actions must be tailored specifically to this one life we have. Sawaki also said that to be born human is rare. There will only ever be one of you. Try to consider that before you start wasting your time doing things for “good” karma that you can somehow access in your “next life”. Many people engage in actions that they think will somehow benefit them at a later time. This is a perverse motivation. The source of these actions are coming from a place of selfishness. They cannot be authentic. Until we strip bare our reasons for why we do things, it will be difficult to act in a genuine way. Focus on this one life, it really is all you have.

Leighton Peart

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de omnibus dubitandum 💭

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