In the West we so rarely reflect upon the end of life The end of a career. Even the end of a chapter.
But to meditate on the end of an experience is to be deeply rooted in its fragility. And in that fragility lies fertility: the ability to impart beauty and life.
Everything that we know will give way to ineluctable crucible of time. Our families; our friends; our youth; our society. Life lies suspended — breathing for but a moment in time until that moment collapses back into matter.
That’s what it means to be alive. To hold each moment with such joy, knowing that it can never be reclaimed. It’s remembering that in each passing second, we have the agency to make a choice about how to be and how to live.
There is no more important end than the end of our own person. That end is an invitation. Because death is as beautiful a part of life as life — and that death will give birth to new life — as it always has and always will. Death waits patiently in the background, ready to be greeted as an old friend if we are ready to accept it as on.
Death approaches slowly. Its lights beaming dimly at the end of the road. But most people spend their lives looking in the other direction, so that they do not expect it until it is right before their eyes
The end is as intrinsic to life as the beginning. Light and dark bound together in a beautiful eternal braid.
So what will we do with the precious time that we have to enjoy personhood, as the gorgeous sands slip through our fragile hands — until they go limp.
#Thursdaythought