Born to Die
Time is Short
Terry
Blanchard
died
Tuesday.
Host of our monthly
open mic poetry reading
at Black Cat Books and Coffee,
it is in this very room
I first met Terry.
Like
many
of us,
Terry
was old,
and so,
many of
the poems
we recite
monthly
are aged
to perfection.
The Charnel House by Henry de Groux (1866–1930), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Mons, Belgium. Photo by Getty
Memento mori — invitations to reflect on our own mortality — have been common throughout history. Two ancient traditions that made reflection on death central to their paths are Buddhism and Stoicism. For both, the starting point is the fact that our normal perceptions of value are deeply flawed, as we are constantly craving or loathing things that in reality are unimportant. The Buddhist texts offer a neat list of these: gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. The Stoics had a word for them, which translates as ‘indifferents’. The things that we are so keen to pursue — wealth, material possessions, sense pleasures, comfort, success, people’s approval, romantic love and so on — are bound to disappoint and distract us from what really matters, which is our ethical and spiritual progress.
