When I was very young, on the occasion of the death of a neighbour’s pet, my clever sister declared during a family dinner: ‘We’re all dying. Every day.’ 

Her statement is technically correct, isn’t it. Her use of the present continuous was, and is, the most suitable tense. Dying is a process we’re engaged in, as we speak, as soon as we are born, however fast or slow.

Much discussion ensued. Some said my sister was a pessimist, morbid; others said, speak for yourself. I sat silent, agreeing with all of them, my sister included. 

It was scary to think about it. Death presents as something to be feared. 

If you sit there right now and consider death for yourself, you will probably get up and do something to distract you. Our thinking brain repels death because it’s anathema for our consciousness to imagine not having itself. 

Snuffed out like a flame. 

We can’t do it. 

And so, as a psychological defense mechanism, according to Terror Management Theory, civilizations have developed afterlife scenarios, a.k.a. religions. Think heaven and hell and things in between (limbo, purgatory) or samsara (karma-based rebirth).

Hamlet so feared the afterlife’s unknowability that, despite his desire to end it all, he chose rather to live: 

The undiscovered country from whose bourn [boundary] 

No traveler returns, puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of

When his father died, my son said: Death gives meaning to time.

Whenever someone we know, and especially someone we love, dies, we re-orient ourselves to our own death, and for a while, more sharply to our life. We allow death to inform our choices or we put more vigour into considering them. And then death wears off and though perhaps we’ve changed a bit, its shrewd edge blends with the rest of us. It’s hard to constantly give meaning to time. There are so many other things to do. 

I wonder how our existence would be different if our mortality—such as living with an awareness of dying as though it’s a current process rather than a fact to be feared—were embedded in our politics, education, culture, upbringing, and the personal choices we make that carve out our lives.

I mean really embedded

Imagine as a child routinely sitting around the dinner table witnessing your parents discuss minor decisions like a new car, a social event, or a paint colour, and major decisions like changing jobs, or moving, or divorce, with the shared understanding that our existence is finite, that we are mortal, that someday our consciousness will be switched off like a light. 

I feel my grip on the wonder of living. 

Reactive emotions have a lesser intensity and importance to them. 

Even if I cannot claim that mortality gives more meaning to life, it might bring clarity. 

I have a very big decision to make. 

Applying mortality as described above is almost like it doesn’t matter what I decide. Whichever path I choose, it’s more about maintaining the grip on the wonder of living than on the choice. 

We each probably have our own version of giving meaning to time.