Grapple with mortality
Growing up, we feel invincible, as if the world bends over to our will and shielded from any harm befalling on us. Scrapes and bruises from tumbles and falls seemed nearly a daily occurrence, but rarely did they leave lasting scars. We fall, and get right back up. We move forward stronger.
It’s as if we have this invincibility cloak shielding us, preventing obvious difficulties of life from penetrating and leaving scars, whether they be mental or physical. Occasionally, we are met with circumstances substantial enough that crater portions of this cloak, leave their mark, showing us we’re not all that invincible after all.
Although past adolescence, we do face plenty of events that create depressions in this cloak: high school drama, broken bones, childhood traumas, for me it was, thankfully, largely intact, the first real cavities of my cloak came in 2017.
In September of 2017, I was days away from being deported from the United States to India due to a visa complication despite having lived in the states for nearly two decades at that point. It was the first time in my life I felt scared, apprehensive of the unknown. Thoughts race of the outcomes of an uncertain future, and my brain was now rewired on how to treat existential parameters. The invincibility cloak took some damage, but stayed largely intact.
Until 2023.
In May, I got news of my friend’s father passing away due to mental health and substance dependence at 55. In April, my friend’s friend lost his battle to cancer at 27 years old. Last week, a family friend lost their brother to a heart attack at 44. Early July, my friend’s sister went into labor at 5 months, and signed the death certificate of her twin children hours after they were born.
In June, I lost a friend to her own mental health struggles. To give a sense of who she was, she performed a DJ set for a house party fall of 2022. Before starting the set, she gathered everyone in this large warehouse to close their eyes, set the intention for the night as playfulness and freedom, and organized a short group meditation with 10 deep breaths. From any outsider, she was joyous, empathetic, and wiggly. Yet, on June 18th, a decade of mental illness repeatedly wore her down, consistently thinning down her cloak, leaving her vulnerable. Two weeks after I saw her infectious smile, she took her own life at 30 years old.
On January 8th, I got a call that my beloved father had fallen on his head while on vacation in India. He endured a severe stroke, rendering him comatose. Despite two brain surgeries, his wounded cloak eventually shed from his skin, and he mustered his last breath with his hand in mine on March 18th at 55 years old. He truly was one of the greatest men I’ve gotten the luxury to know.
I spent the first 2.5 months of 2023 in the ICU of a large hospital in India. As visiting hours for my dad were only 9-10am and 5-6pm, a bulk of my time was spent chatting with other families on the ICU waiting floor who also had a family member in the ICU in severely critical situations. An 18 year old child who wept on my shoulder from his father passing from a lung condition the day before his college entrance exam. A 32 year old farmer whose wife was in the ICU with complications from a delivery and her newborn was in the neighboring NICU. He couldn’t bring himself to watch his wife breathe her last breaths, so my mom went in the ICU with him, and they both held her hand and watched her eyes shut for the last time. Despite our ephemeral connections at that hospital, we built an eternal bond.
I have dozens of other stories from the ICU room, and maybe I’ll write about it when I can muster up the courage and not have floodgates unlocking from my misty eyes.
Weep if you must,
Parting is hell.
But life goes on,
So sing as well.
Despite constant grapples with mortality this year, I’m still trying to make sense of it all. But I think I’ve gotten somewhere.
Each and every one of us knows that we don’t walk this realm forever. We don’t know why, but this is one of the core rules in this game of life we play, despite not even having consent over enlisting to play. On average, our game lasts 4000 weeks, an astonishingly brief period of time. However, even this is not guaranteed. None of the individuals I’ve mentioned lived past 3000 weeks. This is the time we have at our disposal.
We can love, cry, laugh, hug, kiss, celebrate, eat, and simply just live out the human experience for the wonderful, simplistic beauties it offers. There’s so many wonders of the world to be grateful and in awe of. Music, airplanes, national parks, public transit, cars, friendly strangers, delicious food, friendships, air conditioning. Even simply just marveling at our own human body; that we get the chance to live out a life more complex than any other species to exist in this history of time (as far as we know).
Why then, is it so painstakingly arduous to sometimes enjoy life as it is, to be grateful for what we have rather than compare and lament what we lack? Why then, are we bound by such materialistic virtues and obsessed with progress to the extent we are blinded by greed?
The entropy of this world can create chaos that will uproot your life in an instant. Car crashes leaving you paralyzed. Hurricanes tearing down homes families worked generations to build. A father falling to his eventual passing on a plain Sunday evening, shattering the dynamics of a family.
Of course, progress and innovation are important. It is why we can live in air conditioned buildings, fly to all parts of the world, and carry an incredible camera in our pockets. People are living longer than ever from medical research, and we know more about ourselves than we’ve ever known.
However, in this time of incredibly rapid innovation as a collective over the last 100 years, as individuals, we are suffering now more than ever. Mental health issues are skyrocketing, we’re feeling more alone than ever, people don’t have friends they feel close to, and we are constantly fed news about the world spiraling out of control and heading towards a burning fire.
Where is the balance? How can I stay sane in this madness? What should I do about this, I’m just gonna die anyway?
My grapple with mortality this year has added a lot of clarity for me personally. Inspired from accounts of content centennials around the world as well as reflecting on past events and decisions that kept me content, focusing on these areas has really changed perspective on what things truly add value to a life well lived.
Gratitude and appreciation for the little things
Nurture non-transactional relationships
Do what you love
Who cares?
GRATITUDE
There was such an infinitesimal chance of you being alive in this very moment. Let’s take time out of our days to appreciate that and the people around you that bring you joy. Call a loved one and let them know you appreciate them. They probably know, but I promise it won’t hurt if they hear it out loud.
NON-TRANSACTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Foster relationships you can truly feel are non-transactional, where you don’t feel like you’re doing it to get something in return. It feels really fucking good when it’s reciprocated, and it’s only going to be reciprocated if you go in with that mindset from the get-go.
DO WHAT YOU LOVE
Find the few things that truly bring you joy. One good tell is if you can enter the flow state doing this activity, where time stops and the only thing that really matters is the task at hand. Find these activities, maximize your time doing them. Delayed gratification is important as well (e.g. eventually getting to do the things you love), but if you’re currently unhappy, pin down why and attack it. Don’t let it linger, it will become a parasite.
WHO CARES? DO YOU
Living in New York, this mindset has really been manifesting my mindset. Ask that girl out, take that detour from your walk home, compliment that random stranger, sleep that extra 2 hours, wear that bucket hat. Do you. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Regrets are not worth ever holding onto.
We will all pass some day. Our invincibility cloaks can only shield us for so long. Life will have its struggles, its ups and downs, for what is life if not a series of problems that we are presented with and attempt to solve. But in between these struggles, there’s pockets of good that we can hold onto. We are all mortal, but that’s what makes it beautiful. You are beautiful. You are loved.