Friday, March 23, 2007

Tackling the cliche question: What would you do if you were dying soon?

If I was told that I have a limited time to live, I would live more fully the present. I would forget about all my long term plans. I would not finish college. I would not even think about graduate school, or marriage, or having children. I would not save to buy a better car. I would spend more time with my friends and family. I would go back home. I would spend my time reading, writing, and contemplating nature – the ocean, the forests, and the mountains. I would eat more of my grandmother’s delicious dishes. I would keep on dancing, if I was healthy enough to do it. I would dance and write about living and dying.

I constantly try to live my life intensely, to appreciate each and every moment. Nevertheless, it is a very different thing to try to be grateful and glad for everything you experience, as if it was your last chance, than to know it for sure. It makes you wonder why we push ourselves through so many unpleasant moments for the sake of the future, if the truth is that we could die any moment for the simple reason that we are alive.

Written July 2006

With the certainty of death would surely also come the need for transcendence. I would probably turn unto writing more than ever before in my life. I would probably feel that my words would outlive me. I would thrive in the hope that, although I might be gone, anybody could pick up my writings and still listen to my voice, still share my thoughts, still get to know me. I once read a quote, whose author I have forgotten, that went something like this: “Sharing what we know is as close as we can get to immortality.”

If I had the money to travel, I would certainly try to go to as many places, off that list we all keep of places we would like to visit one day, as possible. I would visit Morocco and the pyramids in Egypt. I would dance in India and in Cuba. I would soak in and absorb Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. I would marvel at Hawaii and Madagascar. If I had the health to do it, I would finally set onto those backpacking trips through Europe and South America I have been postponing since I graduated from high school.

It is difficult to think about what one would do in such a situation without actually feeling the need for doing all those things we are not doing, without feeling like we are wasting our time. Even as I try to imagine what I would do, I am avoiding being fully aware of the fact that, in fact, I could die tomorrow, and so could any of the people I love. Maybe we have to prepare for the long term, with all the sacrifices doing so entails, because it is the only way of pretending that our lives are not as fragile as they truly are.

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