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Dallas, Texas, United States

Monday, October 30, 2017

Mortal Terror

The origins of Halloween, or Samhain, are connected to preparing for winter and remembering our dead.  Nowadays many associate Halloween with a good scare.  In celebration of this holiday, I would like to remind you that you will die.

You might be thinking that you still have plenty of time left but I would point out to you that time accelerates as you get older.  Note now how the many anticipated far future dates of a graduation, wedding, major purchase, or relocation have already come and gone.  Now imagine your future self in the nursing home.

In theory, you should be terrorized.  By this I do not mean the mortal terror of an infant separated from its mother.  I suggest instead of a creeping fear of the inevitable that makes you desperate and a little crazy.

If you are still alive in five months with another winter behind you, consider celebrating a different kind of inevitability.  So long as medicine continues to advance, a cure for aging must come.  When it does, will you still be around to partake?


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