Eric Romer @EricRomer: love ‘What Are You?’ post. how do u avoid the #fuckitnothingreallymatters effect?
ANSWER:
Here’s the thing: it’s true. Nothing does matter. Whatever you do, 10 years from now nobody will remember. In some rare cases they will remember. But 100 years from now nobody will remember. Or 1000 years from now. The universe is 13 billion years old. We’re nobody in it. Each life is like a small pin in the middle of a gigantic stadium. It means nothing.
But…we have to feed our family. We have to feed ourselves. Our bodies want us to treat them well and to survive. So we need to do what it takes. And ideally the rest of the time we sit and we think to ourselves, “what will it feel like to be dead”. Because eventually we will spend most of eternity being dead. So why not practice thinking about what it will feel like right now. Practice as much as possible. There are secret surprises waiting for you if you think a lot about what it would be like to be dead, to be gone, to have no trace of you left. You end up loving everything around you. Because everything will eventually be gone.
All of the people we are arguing with. Everyone who has done us wrong. Everyone we have loved or ignored or hated. We all have that in common. We’re all brothers and sisters in death.
This moment is very special. Because in just one more moment, like everything else, it passes into the land of the dead.