- It was a workout for our bodies and our spirits.
- It took place in a cemetery.
- It was an intimate contemplation of our inevitable deaths.
- Then we went to Dunkin' Donuts.
A goose-step and a stretch sufficed for a warmup and then we headed south to the cemetery at Mt. Zion to discuss death in between running and doing burpees.
Memento Mori (Latin): Remember that you will die.
Memento Mori is not only one of the few phrases I recall from FOUR YEARS of studying Latin, but an ancient philosophical perspective adopted by the Stoic philosophers (among many others). It's an admonition for us to live our lives with the passionate realization that we will die and we have a choice about whether that moment will be tragic or glorious.
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. 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.”
— Seneca
Egyptians celebrations of all kinds encouraged reminding people of their impending death. You may think that this sounds like an awful idea. I mean, who wants to think about death? But what if instead of being scared and unwilling to embrace the reality of mortality, we did the opposite? What if reflecting and meditating on death was a simple key to living life to the fullest—the key to our freedom?
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Meditating on your mortality is only depressing if you miss the point. It is in fact a tool to create priority and meaning. It’s a tool that generations have used to create real perspective and urgency. To treat our time as a gift and not waste it on the trivial and vain. Death doesn’t make life pointless but rather purposeful. And fortunately, we don’t have to nearly die to tap into this. A simple reminder can bring us closer to living the life we want.
“Come to terms with death. Thereafter anything is possible.”
— Albert Camus
It doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you have left to be done, a car can hit you in an intersection and drive your teeth back into your skull. That’s it. It could all be over. Today, tomorrow, someday soon. The Stoics found this thought not dispiriting, but invigorating and humbling.
“To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”
— Montaigne
In lieu of 10 burpees, the pax had the option of answering one of the questions below—in writing (yes, I came prepared). They all opted for the burpees on question #1, but participation picked up from there and by the end, almost everyone had answered at least some of the death-related questions. Just so you, dear reader, don't experience FOMO, here they are:
- Buddhists have a saying: “Death does not differentiate between tasks done and undone.” What tasks of yours are undone?
- If you knew that you were going to die in one year, what would you do differently?
- Stoic philosophers taught that you should build your monument before your death. What will be your greatest legacy contribution to the world?
- Write your own epitaph. What would you like it to say?
- There is an Icelandic Proverb that says:
Animals die,
friends die,
and thyself, too, shall die;
but one thing I know that never dies
the tales of the one who died.
What tales of yours will never die?
Moses, unsurprisingly, was the MVP contributor, but other pax shared some of their answers as well. We did a joggy jog back to Harris Teeter (was that the funeral march from Amadeus I heard?) and clocked in 2.3 miles total. Moses shared some tales of his that will never die, but YHC surmised that he had many more he could have referenced.
The idea was to discuss more of the workout questions at coffeeteria, but the conversation there—while often on topic—was more general than specific. Gnarly Goat joined us after the end of his overnight shift at the firehouse, and brought his usual great input, information, and insights. Blackbeard, Possum, and Frazier chimed in, too, so it was an equal-opportunity dire discussion of death.
Thanks to the men who came out to support my virgin master Q at Fission. It's been nice knowing you gents before I die.
