Jorge Luis Borges’ Grim Antidote to Worry
In March of 1980, Argentine short-story writer, poet, essayist and translator Jorge Luis Borges shared a public conversation with the director of Latino Affairs, Jorge Oclander, at Indiana University.
Borges was 80 years old at the time.
He rambled on about his blindness, the books he’s read, his favorite islands and death.
In response to a request to tell the audience about heaven, Borges said he believed there to be much sorrow in heaven because “an eternity of happiness is unbearable.”
He went on to confess he didn’t believe in an afterlife. Then dropped this comment:
When I feel sorry, when I am worried — and I am being worried all the time — I say to myself: Why worry when at any moment salvation may come in the shape of annihilation, of death? Since I am about to die, since I may die at any moment, why worry about things?
Count this as another variation on the theme that the things you worry about rarely — if ever — come true since, in this case, they can’t come true if you are dead.
By the way, whether we are twelve or eighty, we all may die at any moment. So Borges’ advice is universal.
We all worry and we all die.
So stop worrying. Because you may be dead tomorrow.
Full conversation found in Borges at Eighty.
