In the year 1843, a 30-year-old Søren Kierkegaard published his first book. Eight months later, he published three books on the same day and the next year four books in the same month. In total, as he reached the age of 33, he had published sixteen books in the span of just three years.
Then, another year went by and we find this remark in Kierkegaard’s journal: “How strange that I have turned 34. It is utterly inconceivable to me. I was so sure that I would die before or on this birthday that I could actually be tempted to suppose that my birthday was erroneously recorded and that I will still die on my 34th.
” Why did he find that so strange? When Kierkegaard’s father was a shepherd boy, he has cursed God for letting him and his family starve. Later, he came to believe that by cursing God he has cursed himself and as a consequence of this, none of his children may reach the age of Christ, which is 33.
Before reaching adolescence, Kierkegaard has lost five out of seven siblings, leading him to believe that the curse is real and that his life too will have to come to an end soon. Kierkegaard didn’t have the luxury of believing that death is somewhere decades away, too far to be considered, too far to be of tangible relevance. Kierkegaard could not unsee, that not unlike all of us, he was desperately running out of time to do the things that he wanted to do in life.
So, if he wanted to publish a book, if he wanted to discuss the fundamental questions of religion, theology and philosophy – he had to do it now. He died at age 42, leaving behind one of the most profound and influential bodies of work in the history of mankind. Meanwhile, in the year 1849, a 27-year-old Fyodor Dostoyevsky has been sentenced to death for belonging to a literary society that the tsarist regime deemed dangerous.
Together with the other members he was to be executed on a public square in Saint Petersburg as a warning to the masses – there, they were read their death sentence, put into white shirts, they were allowed to kiss the cross, ritualistic sabers were being broken over their heads … They were brought to the stakes and at the last minute, a pompous announcement was made that the tsar was pardoning their lives — the whole spectacle being orchestrated as a cruel publicity stunt to depict the despot as a benevolent ruler. Then, the real sentence was read out – the group-members were sentenced to four years of Siberian labour camp. However cruel the spectacle was, Dostoyevsky was elated with relief, reborn into a new cherishment of life: “Brother!
” he writes in a letter, immediately following the event. “I’m not despondent and I haven’t lost heart. Life is everywhere, life is in us ourselves, not outside.
There will be people by my side, and to be a human being among people and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not to lose heart — that’s what life is all about, that’s its task. I have come to recognize that. The idea has entered my flesh and blood… The head that created, lived the higher life of art, that recognized and grew accustomed to the higher demands of the spirit, that head has already been cut from my shoulders… But there remain in me a heart and the same flesh and blood that can also love, and suffer, and pity, and remember, and that’s life, too!
If anyone remembers me with malice, and if I quarreled with anyone, if I made a bad impression on anyone — tell them to forget about that if you manage to see them. There is no bile or spite in my soul, I would like to so love and embrace at least someone out of the past at this moment. […] When I look back at the past and think how much time was spent in vain, how much of it was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in the inability to live; how I failed to value it, how many times I sinned against my heart and spirit — then my heart contracts in pain.
Life is a gift, life is happiness, each moment could have been an eternity of happiness. If only, the youth knew! ” After a prolonged period in Siberian exile, a 40-year-old Dostoyevsky returned to his writings, publishing some of the most influential works concerning anxiety of death, man’s freedom and faith.
His message – we are desperately, hopelessly free to choose what kind of life we are living. The choice can be paralyzing. But with death waiting at our doorstep, we have to gather the courage to choose!
At the end of his life, Socrates was sentenced to death by poison. In moment prior to fulfilling his sentence, he contemplates the relation between truth and death. He says: “The one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death”.
Imagine lying on your death-bed, looking back on your life. How would you evaluate the life that you’re living right now? With this “death-bed” perspective, if you could travel back in time to this present moment, would you change your current existence?
Questions such as this one, when contemplated deeply enough, can bring about a profound shift in our thinking – for one thing, when we are truly aware of our own mortality, our petty everyday worries and strivings tend to fall away as naturally as leaves from an autumn tree. This is the reason why stories about people encountering death, rather than haunting, can be also up-lifting, reminding us that too often in life we both intellectually and emotionally focus on things that would be of no importance if we were facing death. Maybe we’re overwhelmed by a hundred little expectations, a hundred little things that we have to do, we can feel fractured, dis-oriented in life – but contemplating our mortality can lend us a new perspective, one of deep focality, since in the face of death, only few things remain truly important.
“Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life,” Seneca writes. “Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day.
. . The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.
” Contemplation of death can lead us to a life, filled with no, or at least less, regret. Too many decisions in life are made with the supposition that we still have time to indefinitely put off the things that we want to experience and achieve. One of the biggest regrets that people tend to have, is not spending more time with their loved ones.
So, the Stoic philosophers stressed the importance of contemplating not just our own mortality, but also the mortality of our loved ones: “When you kiss your child,” Epictetus writes, “say that you are kissing the mortal: for everything that is of the body is mortal /…/” Japanese aesthetics have a useful term for the acceptance of the transience and imperfection of things in the cycle of life and death, wabi-sabi. Coming to see the beauty of imperfect states, we can cultivate an acceptance of our own mortality, in contrast to western aesthetics, that for the large part of history, had been focusing on perfection, an angel’s viewpoint, the point of view of eternity, all the while tempting us with ideas of immortality. If we learn to see the beauty in transience, we could see the beauty in the fact that our lives and the lives of others too do not extend forever.
This attitude can aid us in overcoming the ever-emerging state of forgetfulness or avoidance of our mortality and the morality of those close to us. Rather than to spend our lives distracting ourselves with everyday concerns and activities, confronting the reality of death can lead us to live an authentic life, one true to our deepest aspirations and desires. In the words of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger: “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.
” Our death is inevitable - although we never know how and when this day will come. This should not encourage us to view death as something distant - instead we should come to terms with it and live fully, authentically and with urgency. This is easier said than done, for not only we have to learn how to come to terms with death, but also how to live in the first place.
Here, we will find no easy answers, since as you can see from my other Youtube videos, even as we carefully tackle this question from many angles, it can often feel like we’re no step closer to an answer. But let's not put of the question until our life is threatened by age, infirmity or life-threatning illness. We are running out of time - we have to do it now.
When thinking about life, there must always be a sense of urgency in the air. We have only one life. And to paraphrase Socrates, if we don’t even examine it, what’s the point of living it?
On my channel, we look at movies, literature and works of philosophy in the desire to examine our lives. I post new video-essays every week, so if you want join my journey of self-discovery, feel free to subscribe. If you want to show additional support, I have recently set up a Patreon account, where you can find transcripts of my videos.
Thanks for watching.
