Beauty in Mortality: Using Death as an Intellectual Tool

Don’t ignore death — use it to your advantage

When I was little, I never thought about death. Of course, intuitively I always knew that one day I was going to die. But it seemed so far away that my rational mind never took it as a serious concern.

Despite not really thinking about it, it still impacted every part of my life. If death didn’t exist then I wouldn’t fret over a bad test grade, not getting into the school I want or even losing a game.

I’m sure you know the feeling.

It wasn’t until I studied Hamlet by William Shakespeare that I grasped how important mortality was to humanity. The magnificent play captures the role of mortality in our daily lives through Hamlet’s inability to come to terms with his father’s passing and arguably, his own existence.

It expressed to me that not only was I mortal, but I could die very soon. This established many questions involving my own mortality which I had to answer. In a way, Hamlet’s existential crisis rubbed off onto me.

Why am I here?

Am I wasting my life?

What should I do with my time?

Imagining death is unfathomable, yet our existence is just a blink in the span of the universe. You never know when your last day is.

It could be years from now, or maybe months, or it could be tomorrow, or even today. It’s an extremely dramatic idea but it’s true. This could be your final moment.

And that makes it beautiful.

“The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again” — Troy

Death Gives Life Meaning

Let’s do a thought experiment with death. Imagine death didn’t exist and we lived eternally. There would be no desire to do anything at all. We would all sit in our homes pondering what to do our entire lives.

Death gives character to the phrase ‘quality over quantity’. It puts a burning rope that we have to live by, and gives us a constraint we can’t rid.

And constraints spark creativity. Having limited resources forces us to make choices on what we need most.

It forces us to prioritise.

Accepting death as inevitable means understanding it, not rejecting it. This entails thinking about it rather than just ignore it and hope it never happens.

In fact, it can become a powerful intellectual tool. The reminder of death in your life will cause you to reconsider what you’re doing, whether or not you’re making the most of your time and what’s most important to you.

Steve Jobs expressed in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech that he wakes up every day asking himself if he would still do what he’s about to do if today was his last day to live.

If he answered ‘no’ too many days in a row he knew that something needed to change. This is a rather extreme example of how death can be used to improve your life, but I hope it gets the point across.

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. 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. — Steve Jobs

I hope I’ve conveyed my thoughts about death clearly. If you are in an existential crisis, I wish that you embrace it, and use it as a tool to develop your character.