Midlife Lessons: We Need To Talk About Death (No Really)
Reaching middle age means facing the inevitable–but even if thinking about death is upsetting, it makes our lives more meaningful.
Midlife Lessons: We Need To Talk About Death (No Really)
We never talk about death, especially in middle age. It's easy to forget the inevitable end when we're busy working, raising children, and having fun. However, as we age, death becomes harder to ignore. In Britain, we often use a light-hearted phrase, "cheer up mate, it might never happen," to make light of any situation. But it's a reality we can't ignore.
Captain James T. Kirk, from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, wisely pointed out that how we deal with death is as important as how we deal with life. You can't separate the two. As we grow older, death starts to loom larger in our minds. In my later teenage years, I watched Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, which suggested that facing death, even through chess, was better than ignoring it.
Recently, as I faced my own midlife crisis, I started thinking about death more seriously. I wanted to find a way to make sense of life and its connection to death. I realized that life is much better than any idea of heaven, hell, or non-existence. Even a hard life is preferable to an existence that's like one of Dante's or Joyce's visions of hell.
Death marks the end of life, but it also helps us understand the true value of life. As Captain Kirk discovered, facing aging and death is a part of becoming middle-aged. Embracing death can help us live better.
Written by urgent.news from Newsweek's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
