Robert Greene’s Strategy For Immediate Purpose And A Great Life
“Let us rid death of it’s strangeness, come to know it, get used to it. Let us have nothing on our minds as often as death. At every moment let us picture it in our imagination in all it’s aspects…It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation of freedom…He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraints. Michel de Montaigne
My thoughts with death daily became too often.
“What makes life worth living?”
“Life isn’t that sacred.”
Does all of this make me suicidal?
But then I read Robert Greene’s The Laws Of Human Nature, and learned that it’s actually good for you.
If you think about death a lot, you’re often inquisitive and contemplative, and are highly conscious. All you have to do now is learn to harness that self-awareness to your advantage.
Why Thinking About Death Is Good For You
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘wow! What a ride!’ — Hunter S. Thompson
In The Laws of Human Nature Greene shares the story of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s brush with death — what he learned from it, and how it impacted his life. Dostoevsky is considered one of the greatest writers of all time with books like Crime and Punishment, the Idiot and the Brothers Karamazov.
At twenty-seven, he was imprisoned for taking part in a plot against the Czar. What began as imprisonment suddenly became a quick and shocking death sentence.
As Greene describes him upon finding out:
“In those few minutes, emotions he had never felt before came rushing in. He noticed the rays of light hitting the dome of a cathedral and saw that all life was as fleeting as those rays. Everything seemed more vibrant to him. He noticed the expressions on his fellow prisoners’ faces, and how he could see the terror behind their brave facades. At the last moment, a representative from the czar rode into the square, announcing that their sentences had been commuted to several years’ hard labor in Siberia. Utterly overwhelmed by his psychological brush with death, Dostoyevsky felt reborn. And the experience remained embedded in him for the rest of his life, inspiring new depths of empathy and intensifying his observational powers.”
Greene’s interpretation of this is as follows:
“Normally we go through life in a very distracted, dream-like state, with our gaze turned inward. Much of our mental activity revolves around fantasies and resentments that are completely internal and have little relationship to reality. The proximity of death suddenly snaps us to attention as our whole body responds to the threat. This focuses the mind to a much higher level and we notice new details, see people’s faces in a new light, and sense the impermanence in everything around us, deepening our emotional responses. We cannot reproduce that experience without risking our lives, but we can gain some of the effect through smaller doses. We must begin by meditating on our death and seeking to convert it into something more real and physical.”
Conclusion
Many of the greatest thinkers of the modern era suggest harnessing death as a tool for living well.
Tolstoy said to live rationally, one must live so that death cannot destroy life.
Socrates said:
No man knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessing for a human being; and yet people fear it as if they knew for certain that is is the greatest of evil.
Greene’s own interpretation, as one of the deepest thinkers alive today, seems to agree.
In the Laws Of Human Nature, Green suggests suggest envisioning the day our death arrives, where it might be and how it might come — making it as vivid as possible.
Do a daily death meditation to remind yourself that life is short, and can end at anytime. Breathe in and recognize death, look it dead in the eyes. Then breathe out and focus on the things you want to avoid regretting on your death bed. Because remember, there will be a time you’re actually laying on your death bed, and the last thing you want to have as you lay there is regret.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +414,678 people.
Subscribe to receive our top stories here.
