M05 · Mortality and Finitude
Contemplating mortality
Using awareness of human finitude (memento mori) to strip away triviality and clarify what matters.
Cues
Showing 4 of 4 cues
“I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived - and dying I will tend to later.”
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”
“Let your every deed and thought be those of one who might depart from life this very moment.”
Tolstoy's circle of reading
Tolstoy spent seventeen years collecting a wise thought for every day; in his late seventies, seriously ill and confronting mortality, he wrote the book and felt elevated by communion with the wisest people.