IV. Death by Water
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
I get Phlebas mixed up with those lines from Shakespeare's "The Tempest", where we get the idiom "sea change":
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.
Memento mori is just the ultimate reduction of the sentiment.
The whole stoic philosophy behind it is interesting. It's not just that you will die no matter how long you can put it off for. Once you are gone all that's left of you will be memories and descendants.
Even if you are remembered for a long time, like for example someone as famous as Marcus Aurelius, those memories aren't you they're just a reduction. You're gone forever.
You could extend that to consider the self you were 10 years ago. That you is also gone forever.
All in all it can be a freeing thing to contemplate. All you have is the right now so enjoy it or at the very least bare it.
And honestly it has made me less anxious and more aware of how precious life is. I keep it as a bookmark on my phone home screen and every time I look at it I feel grateful to be alive and prioritize things much better.
This always sounded incredibly scary to me, especially when I was in my early 20s. I guess when you're that age you don't like the idea of things having an end, you are sort of overwhelmed by a feeling of infinity, of never-ending youth.
Now I'm not even 30 but this kind of memento mori doesn't strike me as scary but as liberating. "Here's your precious, finite time in this world, and it's up to you to make it worth it." This is one of those things when knowing you're in charge makes you better, kind of how taking responsibility empowers you inside.
> The most important thing I discovered a few days after turning 65 is that I can't waste any more time doing things I don't want to do.
--- Jep Gambardella, La Grande Bellezza
Is this a good thread to recommend the movie "The Man From Earth"? Awesome sci-fi about living forever, made with just a bunch of people talking in a small room.
If you enjoy independent films that mostly consist of people talking in very few different locations, I strongly recommend Coherence. It's pretty different but I think I enjoyed both of these for similar reasons.
34 year old male triathlete here. As healthy/fit as can be. In 2016 I had a brief scare with stage 2 colon cancer- no clue where it came from, just hit by lightning. I just found out last week it's in my lung now, and I start chemo next week while everyone is getting laid off.
It sounds cliche, but man I plan on getting this tatoo'd on me if/when I recover. Life is too short and delicate. Meditate, read the classics, and fucking get after it HN because ya never when your time is up.
Sam Harris has a great quote about the fact that you almost never know when you're doing something for the last time. My last skydive, my last run, my last rejected PR :p It's a reminder to stay present and entirely focused, because the present moment is all we have and it's fleeting. I love you all.
Well said. Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I'm a cancer survivor too. You're not alone. If you want someone to talk to about it, just let me know. (Contact info in my profile)
Thank you! Millions of folks are going through the same thing, I have to remind myself that I'm so so fortunate to live close to world class hospitals and have a job that provides health insurance.
Wow, thanks for sharing. May I ask what tipped you off to the stage 2 colon cancer? Symptoms? A sagacious doctor recommending a test based on some distantly related finding?
Sure- it started with me throwing up in August of 2016. I figured it was food poisoning and just kinda shrugged it off and ignored it for a couple months. I started to feel more fatigued and went to my doctor in October. We ran blood tests and saw that I was profoundly anemic. Did a stool analysis and they saw blood in there so that was enough to get a referral to a GI specialist and I had a colonoscopy and they took some biopsies.
After the biopsy popped, they immediately sent me in for a CT scan and I believe in surgery to have the tumor removed that same week. It was a wild ride.
This metastasis in the lung isn't going to be easy, but I'll crush it non the less.
Damn skippy! Good luck Wonnk13! "Get after it because you never know when your time is up" is the most important life skill to learn. I didn't really believe it until my dad broke his back and was paralyzed just as he was retiring. Then after he recovered from back surgery and rehab they found a brain tumor, and he never recovered from that. After he died my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. My parents were farmers who always said they would wait until retirement to enjoy life, travel, etc. Well, f that noise; it's a trap! You can still work hard if that's what you want, but make it count everybody. Don't put things off. Just don't.
I'm really sorry for your loss. This is a "friendly" debate I've had with my brother and sister-in-law about the FIRE movement. I have all kinds of retirement funds and investments, but even before this cancer bs I've become increasingly YOLO. The past and future don't exist. Which is not to say that people shouldn't plan and make contingencies, but I agree that I think delaying all of your hopes and dreams to some future date is perilous.
Middle aged fitness enthusiasts tend to get very resentful when some act of Fate strikes them. But cancer can happen even to kids with their youth and lack of lifestyle history.
This is an anecdotal cancer recover story that gives methodology. Just for reference. The guy became famous. One thing seems quite certain is: Fasting is very beneficial to body during chemo. (Not quite well explained in this interview but there are a few other interviews with the same guy). Hope it's useful
That video interview is so valuable, by presenting a real case, that was successful in beating cancer, with some novel approach. It's good for people to be aware of this. This is not about Eric Berg.
I love the ambiguity of this. I think get Burnett's point, but this could also just be the beginning of a long list of "the frightening thing is not X" statements. :)
It serves to remind me to stop comparing my existence to others or ones that I have imagined. Love your fate because the only thing you truly own in life is your experience. It's unique in the truest possible sense.
If you practice amor fati it might make you uncomfortable to say it to yourself when experiencing bad things, this is until you realise that there is no good without bad and visa versa. At best the bad experiencing is amplifying the next high. At worst it is a price that you are paying to have and relive beautiful memories.
'Love of ones fate'. I interpret it as being more accepting and forgiving of yourself and your life. Sometimes we are our biggest critic.
Yesterday there was a post on HN on ADHD and top comment on dealing with it was something like - 'You know you do not need to be a high-performing individual.' [1] I think that is an example of Amor Fati.
7. Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may along the way amuse yourself with picking up a shellfish, or an onion. However, your thoughts and continual attention ought to be bent towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call on board; you must then immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep. So it is with life. If, instead of an onion or a shellfish, you are given a wife or child, that is fine. But if the captain calls, you must run to the ship, leaving them, and regarding none of them. But if you are old, never go far from the ship: lest, when you are called, you should be unable to come in time.
17. Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it. If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one. If it is his pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally. For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another's.
I find that its easy to look back on memories and wish to go back. One day it clicked that I may look back on today and think the same thing. For me, the key is to try and be happy today, try not to look backwards and long for the impossible idea of revisiting those times, and try not to fear the future.
I've been doing quite a bit of philosophy reading over the past year or two after some medical issues put me in a chronic pain. I was already into stoicism but that made it a permanent part of my weekly nerd out sessions.
I'll take this opportunity to drop this (not affiliated) link for the folks with a casual interest who like it simple:
"Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm's length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he's about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, I haven't touched you yet."
[0]Picard: "Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived. After all, Number One, we're only mortal."
Riker: "Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever."
I feel that I, an older millennial, was raised by a generation that by and large forgot life is not guaranteed and death is always looming. I felt an overwhelming push from my elders to find a safe, stable job (and be grateful for the honor!) and to save as much as humanly possible for old age, even if it meant significant sacrifices for the here and now. Part of it was the glorification of "retirement", a concept I still can't wrap my head around, yet it seemed to be the only reason a lot of Boomers even bothered waking up for work in the morning.
Add to that the massive fear-based campaign against drugs and sex that we were all subject to, and it paints a picture of a generation hiding from their actual lives in the hope that they would be healthy and wealthy and alive and enough to enjoy a quiet decade or two at the very end.
My father in law is one of those. He has more money than he can spend until he dies even if he raised his standard of living 10 times. Yet he refuses to spend it, and would rather be cold during winter than turning up the heater.
I don't get it. But again, I also don't get living a life of pure pleasure, and not thinking at all about tomorrow.
I'd rather think about tomorrow, and spend today getting satisfaction from the work I do, so tomorrow I can say I did my best. But also putting in a few guilty pleasures from time to time. Not too much, because if they're scarce, there's more pleasure.
This is not all that surprising if you flip it around: Your father-in-law has a habit of frugality which led to accumulating far more than he can ever spend.
> He has more money than he can spend until he dies even if he raised his standard of living 10 times
For him the high standards of living is to look at the bank account and seeing his millions and thus feeling like a somebody in a hood of nonodies.
That’s the reasoning that propmts hoarders to hoard.
Me approaching the problem from a completely different angle I realized that if you live in Usa or Western Europe you are basically at the frontier of progress so if you are after a consequential jump in standard of living it will only come from society wide discoveries and inventions, not personal spending no matter how many millions you have. You’d be pushing on a string.
Maybe your father in law refuses to push on a string out of principle?
Your father in law sounds like a virtuous man. If he has earned his money, he must have provided goods and services for others. If he does not spend the money, that means he asked for nothing in return. Is that not virtuous?
He is not hoarding wealth, he is hoarding money. And money is essentially IOUs, claims on the labour of other people and on other resources.
So as I said, if he earned the money, that means he provided for others, and in exchange he got these pieces of paper, which say that later, if he wants to, he can get others to provide for him in return.
Not spending the money means that he never claims anything for himself in return for what he did for others. How is that not virtuous?
He's not spending it, but he invested it. So the money is still growing.
Virtuous would be to just give the money away to those he loved or needed that money (I'm not saying he should do that, I'm just following your logic).
As things go, he will have lived his last years like a poor man, and his family will inherit his money. He will have suffered for nothing, because he doesn't have enough money to make the rest of his family rich, just enough that he wouldn't need to suffer not having anything now.
Even better that he invested it. I see it this way - he is perfectly entitled to use the claims on others' labour and resources for his own pleasure. Instead, by investing, he uses the claims to get others to work on projects that create more real wealth for others to enjoy! That seems like virtuous behaviour to me. Very unselfish.
Sure, giving the money away may or may not be more virtuous (depends on who gets it and what they do with it). But surely you would agree with me that spending it on one's own pleasures is less virtuous than either of not spending it, investing it productively or giving it to loved ones?
Spending with urgency when you are in the twilight of your life makes it so that the claim on other people labor is very weak, because the person spending has essentially no time to waste to haggle or complain about poor service
It sounds like he realizes there is much more to life than physical comfort, and he has the strength and perspective to live accordingly. Excessive physical comfort is often addictive, ultimately unsatisfying, and leads to sadness and weakness. Per the ancient stoics, avoiding it (the virtue of temperance) helps build the strength that makes it possible to escape suffering, and actually enjoy life more.
Two of the most famous stoics Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were among the wealthiest and most powerful men in Ancient Rome yet intentionally lived like you describe because they saw it as virtuous, but also helping make them personally happy people.
I am personally prone to chronic depression and have found that living simply and embracing discomfort helps me to be less depressed. I can afford to live in extreme comfort but I wouldn’t be happy like that, I would feel lethargic and weak… like a pampered pet and not a person with strength and purpose.
What you have described is living your life where you satisfaction comes only from purchasing comfort. Doesn’t that feel a bit empty and pointless? What is important to you in life? Couldn’t you do better at things that were really important, and thus be happier and more satisfied if you had cultivated the strength to not need those comforts?
> What you have described is living your life where you satisfaction comes only from purchasing comfort.
I think there's a difference between having absolute comfort, and not turning up the heater in winter time, enduring cold inside your own house. Besides, it's not like he lives alone, his wife lives with him, and she has to endure that whether she likes it or not (they're old and there's no way for her to leave him, so let's not go there).
So, being a stoic is ok if that's what you like. But dragging others with you by force I think is not ok, and if you apply stoicism on things like not warming up your house, or not buying good food when you invite your family to gather in your house once a year having all the resources to be a good host, is not stoicism. It's being cheap for the sake of being cheap.
Also, my wife told me he's been like that his entire life. It's not like he turned cheap in his old age.
On my part, I'm not going to have dinner for Christmas at his house ever again.
You’re right, the situation is different than I assumed, he just sounds cheap. The point of temperance to me is to be able to better focus my energy and resources on what is important, like doing well as a father and a partner. That won’t involve forcing physical discomfort on other people.
You can generate a lot of wealth through viciousness and exploitation too. Do you think rich people are necessarily virtuous? Because extremely uhhhhhhhhh
You can but, say, on HN, I believe most people have generated their wealth by providing a services for others.
I do not think rich people are necessarily virtuous. I do think that there is virtue in a wealthy person that does not spend their wealth on personal consumption.
I do not think it’s virtuous to pointlessly hurt yourself, nor to allow other people to do so.
Though I guess he doesn’t see it like that. If he just likes the experience of seeing his bank account number go up in the cold, then he should probably continue doing so.
The key thing, is he happy? I don't think how much he saved or spends matters that much. The thing is to have the things that give you satisfaction or comfort.
Come on it's not that hard !!! Slave away your best years and buy a small house when your physical and mental energy are too depleted to be useful as a wage slave
PS: if you're in the poorest class you might only get 0-5 years of ill health retirement
PPS: the house is not contractual
PPPS: the payment neither
You can still work in retirement, as long as you don't make any money from it, you'll generally still be considered retired. The advantage is that you can work on what you think is worth doing, instead of being bossed around by an employer or the market.
That’s an interesting chain of thought considering that prior generations emphasized savings and prudence even more than baby boomers did, and were undoubtedly better acquainted with death than millennials. Indeed, in 1960, when baby boomers were children, the US had an under 5 mortality rate of over 3%, comparable to India today and high enough where nearly everyone knew children who had died.
> prior generations emphasized savings and prudence
Even though I'm a native English speaker, I discovered right now that I didn't know what prudence meant. I knew the word prude so I naturally assumed that prudence meant being concerned with morality and sexual behavior.
It turns out that the words are unrelated. Prudence means the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. So unlike prude, prudence is actually a positive trait.
Though I'll add that "in modern English, the word prudence has become increasingly synonymous with cautiousness; in this sense, prudence names a reluctance to take risks." (Wikipedia)
One could argue that sex and drugs are also the opposite of “discipline” and “reason.” Certainly, they stand in contrast to “reluctance to take risks.”
It is interesting. Boomers came of age in one of the most prosperous societies ever. And while we can't talk about all those tens of millions of people as one unit, there are major and obvious trends from that generation where they emphasized fear of crime and drugs and sex (just look at the politics), and focused on job and retirement security over most other aspects of life.
I'd have expected them to be a lot more decadent and care free. Maybe it has to do with being raised by a generation that could not be decadent or care free (by and large).
Fear of crime and drugs and sex compared to whom? Not the generation before. It seems the correlation goes in the opposite direction from what you posit.
Indeed, as at least the perception of prosperity goes down, it’s worth observing that millennials have fewer sexual partners than boomers and use less drugs.
Hm didn't the boomers famously not save nearly enough for their own retirements? Maybe they were just trying to help you avoid mistakes that they made.
Also weren't they the generation of 'sex, drugs, and rock and roll?'
Cool idea, though I'd consider covering all bases in that implementation, and take into account that this website might be dead long before I will be.. ;)
This is pretty neat and sobering. After I put it in my birth date, I got one value then it dropped nearly 8 years after I put in the correct sex and country of birth
Also not fall prey of FOMO. During the next trillion years We are going to miss out on stuff that is undoubtly much cooler than what we have during our lifespan.
So dom’t fall prey of cruise FOMO or any type of FOMO.
If you can go, great! If you cant, then remember to put it in perspective compared to trip to the Andromeda Galaxy you’ll miss
for sure!
If you had to give an undisguised account of your life and actions today, could you say you were a good you? This memento mori theme figures prominently in the ceremonies of most fraternities and their organiations for that reason, as it's part of the foundation for living a moral life. The symbolism is important because it serves as a durable landmark for aspects of human experience that are essential, and by transmitting them, they form a map for following generations.
"For the time will most assuredly come, and the best and wisest know not how soon, when all distinctions among men save those of goodness and virtue shall cease, and death, the leveler of human greatness shall reduce us all to the same level."
This is a very timely post as we are halfway through Western christianity's month of the dead. I highly encourage anyone, if they find the chance, to attend a Solemn High Requiem Mass on All Souls day. Very metal.
Long I wanted to tattoo this. My favorite (maybe false) story is that this was told to Roman generals when they came back from a victory. Kind of “be humble”. I don’t know if it’s true but having always in mind that death is there both humbles you and makes you appreciate things. Doesn’t make acceptance easier though and I think it’s normal.
I also think it goes perfect with mono no aware from Japan.
Know you will die but appreciate beauty in things even though they will finish/decay/die
To those of you struggling with the meaning of life and death, here is some food for thought: the probability that you are going to die in the next 150 years is 99.999999 % or lower. It used to be 100.00... percent, with infinite zeros after that decimal point. It doesn't seem like much, but depending on where you are in life, your relation with (metaphorical) God, and the amount of humanity you have, that 0.0000001 % makes all the difference.
> It used to be 100.00... percent, with infinite zeros after that decimal point.
Was it? There are lifeforms with longer lifespans so is it not possible that there is some "natural" mutation that will let you live longer? Of course this happening is incredibly unlikely that it might as well be impossible but I saying it that it is literally impossible will need something to back that up.
Reminds me several times a day of the impermanence of life and of death, with a thoughtful quote.
It is a buddhist thing. It somehow makes your everyday world a little easier.
The last quote of the app i took a screenshot of was:
"Having no destination, i am never lost." [Ikkyū]
And not only that, but after a band member died (the album name was chosen before this though).
And on the topic of music, besides Depeche Mode, this made me think of the song 4th of July by Sufjan Stevens and the chorus line he sings as her mother: “Tell me what did you learn from the Tillamook burn or the Fourth of July? We’re all gonna die”.
Sounds like The Notorious B.I.G.'s album Life After Death. It was released 16 days after his murder. The name was chosen before his murder. His previous album was named Ready to Die.
i'd say the overlap between hn readers and avid music listeners isn't too large. but there are also a few other instances of memento mori: see the Apple Music radio playlist hosted by The Weeknd, and the year-long YouTube channel that was hosted by Markiplier and CrankGameplays (Unus Annus, latin for one year)
Memento Mori is a surprisingly popular topic on HN. This Wikipedia page or some other blog post on the topic gets posted here fairly often. It's kinda interesting because when I bring this up with people I know they usually say it's depressing and strange.
I like this idea so much I made an app that makes my wallpaper show what percentage of my life is already gone by, but only one person (a good friend) that I've shown it to IRL has actually liked it.
Part of me was expecting one-star reviews from people with really dark senses of humor about how their loved one had the app installed and died when it was only 31.244% full.
It's even worse when you consider your perception[1] of how much of your life has gone by. At age 20, you perceive that 50% of your life has gone by. That is, you feel like time passes equally slowly (or equally fast) between 0-20 as between 20-75. At age 40, you perceive that 75% of your life has been lived.
[1] I don't recall the source, but it was a psychology or neurology article. I don't claim that the study is flawless, but it does feel to me like there is merit to the argument that a decade in your youth seems like a long time but a decade as an adult passes quickly.
If you get death anxiety like me, try focusing on the fact that the alternative to death (living forever) is actually way more scary. Somehow it helps.
Some quotes from Seneca that made me think about death under a new light:
> Death either annihilates us or strips us bare. If we are then released, there remains the better part, after the burden has been withdrawn; if we are annihilated, nothing remains; good and bad are alike removed.
> What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.
> And I ask you, would you not say that one was the greatest of fools who believed that a lamp was worse off when it was extinguished than before it was lighted? We mortals also are lighted and extinguished; the period of suffering comes in between, but on either side there is a deep peace. For, unless I am very much mistaken, my dear Lucilius, we go astray in thinking that death only follows, when in reality it has both preceded us and will in turn follow us. Whatever condition existed before our birth, is death. For what does it matter whether you do not begin at all, or whether you leave off, inasmuch as the result of both these states is non-existence?
> we do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us; even when we are growing, our life is on the wane. We lose our childhood, then our boyhood, and then our youth. Counting even yesterday, all past time is lost time; the very day which we are now spending is shared between ourselves and death. It is not the last drop that empties the water-clock, but all that which previously has flowed out; similarly, the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
> We must make ready for death before we make ready for life. Life is well enough furnished, but we are too greedy with regard to its furnishings; something always seems to us lacking, and will always seem lacking. To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds.
> But we shall ask this question also: "Is the extremity of life the dregs, or is it the clearest and purest part of all, provided only that the mind is unimpaired, and the senses, still sound, give their support to the spirit, and the body is not worn out and dead before its time?" For it makes a great deal of difference whether a man is lengthening his life or his death.
> There are these three serious elements in every disease: fear of death, bodily pain, and interruption of pleasures. Concerning death enough has been said, and I shall add only a word: this fear is not a fear of disease, but a fear of nature. Disease has often postponed death, and a vision of dying has been many a man's salvation. You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive; even when you have been cured, the same end awaits you; when you have recovered, it will be not death, but ill-health, that you have escaped.
> But tell me, pray, do you consider it fairer that you should obey Nature, or that Nature should obey you? And what difference does it make how soon you depart from a place which you must depart from sooner or later? We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly; for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul. What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness? A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life. Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying. He has lived eighty years, has he? That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death! Your other friend, however, departed in the bloom of his manhood.
The motivation is this interesting story...
'
After a major military victory, the triumphant military generals were paraded through the streets to the roars of the masses. The ceremonial procession could span the course of a day with the military leader riding in a chariot drawn by four horses. There was not a more coveted honor. The general was idolized, viewed as divine by his troops and the public alike. But riding in the same chariot, standing just behind the worshipped general, was a slave. The slave’s sole responsibility for the entirety of the procession was to whisper in the general’s ear continuously, “Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori!”
“Look behind. Remember thou art mortal. Remember you must die!”
The slave served to remind the victor at the peak of glory, this god-like adoration would soon end, while the truth of his mortality remained.
'
Epictetus? He gained his freedom before he began teaching iirc. And was influential and tremendously respected even before that. The contours of roman slavery are complex and I'm not fully informed on them but my understanding is that he would have spent much of his life closer to an emperor in status than to the chattel slavery that modern people are likely to imagine.
https://imgur.com/B7snnCR
Rough translation:
As you are, so I once was As I am, so you will be