Point Taken, Mr. Reaper

February 25, 2006

Life comes with a lot of questions. Every day is a virtual onslaught of decisions and choices and questions, all longing to be answered. Some are small: what to wear… what to eat… whether or not you want fries with that. Some are a little more important: what direction to take your career… family or no family… where you’re going to live. And still other questions are big. Very big. So big, in fact, that we have yet to answer them. How did we get here? Are we alone in the universe? What is the meaning of life?

Science, religion, and philosophy have been competing for centuries to answer the big questions. For every school of thought associated with each, a different answer has been proposed. Science says we evolved from something else that was created by an optimal mix of environment and chemical interaction. Religion says a divine being created the universe and the meaning of life is service to the creator. Philosophy says we may not even really exist at all and that life has no meaning.

I was watching television tonight and the most unlikely of sources put forth another answer to the big question of life’s meaning. I say the source was an “unlikely” source because I really wouldn’t have expected to get anything meaningful out of this show, save for some good ol’ fashioned entertainment. And I’d never thought of the answer it gave, either.

What is the meaning of life, you ask? According to this source… death is not only the meaning of life, but also the only universal that gives life any meaning at all.

You’ve heard the phrase “pointless death” before, right? Behind these words lies the assumption that some death has a point and some does not. When looking at individual cases of dying, can any death really ever have a point? Natural death is just that… natural. No specific point there. Accidental death… murder… is there ever a real point to any of them? On an individual basis, I don’t think there is.

But death, in general, does have a point.

For one, it defines life. Life and death are defined by themselves. One cannot have life if death is not eventual. Can you think of one single thing on Earth that is alive but will never die? And obviously, something can’t die if it was never alive in the first place. Death and taxes… the only universals of life… haha. Or so they say.

But death serves another function as well: it is the ultimate motivator.

Without even realizing it, we’re all motivated by the unspoken and little-thought of knowledge that we will some day cease to exist. Most of us don’t sit around pondering when we’ll die. I’m sure we’ve all probably thought about it at some point in time. But death isn’t a topic that the majority of the population spends a lot of time dwelling on. We all know it’s coming… and we all know we’ll do it eventually. But when you sit down and think about the direction you want to go in life… what to study… where to go… what to buy… who to spend time with… are you usually thinking about how these things relate to your eventual death? Probably not.

Somewhere deep inside the human mind lies the eternal time clock that keeps us subconsciously aware that our days are numbered. Even without thinking about it, we know that we have to do the things we want to do in a certain amount of time. We know that if there are things left on our to-do list, they can’t be put off forever. Sometimes this realization hits like a ton of bricks later in life when the list isn’t done… but time is almost out. As death gets closer, people tend to look back on their lives and examine what they did and did not do. They regret not doing some things and often times express that these things were never done because they just ran out of time.

The amount of time we have to complete our list is never certain. I could walk out the door of my apartment and be crushed by a pile of falling trash from the apartment above me. I could choke on a Hot Pocket before I even make it out the door. Or I could live to be 105. I just don’t know. But the not-knowing is what motivates me to work on my list. It’s what motivates me to stay in touch with the people I care about. It’s what motivates me to occasionally forgive and forget. If I were immortal, what motivation would I have for doing any of these things? If I wasn’t sure to eventually die, what would be the point in even waking up for the next 5 years? I could just sleep for a year or two and pick up my list later. If ever.

Even though death isn’t something most people like to think about it, we do have to appreciate it for what it does. It keeps us on our toes and keeps us moving forward. And even though we may never get there, it gives us a reason to set goals and take risks. If time were not an issue, there would be no urgency to live.

I know I can’t avoid death. If only I could find a way around those damned taxes…

Category Posted in Human Nature, Noteworthy