Death, Life, and Slacklining

I was reading Dr. Beck's blog (the only other blog I read besides my own) and, as he discussed Christian art pertaining to death, I stumbled across the Latin phrase "memento mori." Beck said the phrase can be translated either "remember you are mortal," or "remember you will die." The latter of the translations is the one that stuck out to me, because I think it is common to live our lives in ways that help us forget that we are going to die. We don't think about it often; only at funerals and sad movies and when someone famous dies.

Why do we not think about dying? For one, it's the end of life that we know. We know about earth, how we take in oxygen, how to drive on a road, how to read a book. But when we die, we know essentially nothing about how life is going to be lived. Will we need oxygen? Will we have eyes? Will we walk places or have some other form of transportation? The questions are endless. Dying takes us to a place that we know nothing about, and that is frightening.

Secondly, we don't think about death because often, it is painful. People die in car crashes and by drowning and being trapped in burning or collapsing buildings. Maybe people believe that if you think about the painful ways you can die, one will serendipitously die one of those ways. A different and more likely explanation is that thinking about people dying in painful ways makes a person sad. It is heartbreaking to hear about the excruciating ways that people's lives have ended. And people don't like to be sad, so they don't think about it.

It makes sense for people not to think about dying if death is the end all, the final stage in life. But if death was viewed as just another experience (albeit a rather important one), another step in the walk of life, it would change the way we thought about it. For Christians, Christ promised that there is everlasting life for those who love Him. And most people believe there is going to be no more pain or sorrow or suffering in that life. So, for Christians, death should almost be viewed as an anticipated event. Think about it--a life of never feeling lonely or awkward or depressed or betrayed or unloved is beyond anything we can understand, yet desire more than anything. We want what is promised on the other side of Death's door.

It's a strange dichotomy to anticipate what most people fear. Because for most people, this life is all we have. One who is not religious has no promise of life after death, so it would make sense for them to try and enjoy this life as much as they can. I now understand the train of thought behind "Garden State," where the main character views death as the end and decides that he has to live it up while he's still alive. To me, that's more depressing than death, the idea that our ride on the merry-go-round only lasts one quarter's worth, then we're done.

Memento mori provides me with a heavy amount of perspective. It makes me concentrate on my finiteness, which in turn makes me consider the way that I'm living my life. If I only have a certain number of days, then I consider the importance of what I do (making short films, reading books, etc.). These activities give me purpose when I don't think about death. To contemplate on a cliched line from "Gladiator," does what I do in this life echo in eternity? Is slacklining and geocaching and making short films worthless on the scale of eternal significance?

To answer that question, it is important to ask two questions: why am I doing it, and what am I doing with it? Why do I slackline, and what does my participation in slacklining do for me, as well as for others? In the fascinating book Born To Run, the author finds that one cannot see running as a means to an end ("a better body, a cute butt," whatever), but running itself must be the end in order to keep it in one's life. If you run to get in shape, most likely you will eventually tire of it (if not come to hate it) and stop. But if you run for the love of running, the love of the contact of your foot and the ground, the love of the pain in your calves and lungs; then, you will never get tired of it, you will never stop. I think that is spiritual, a love for something. It has to be. "Every good and perfect gift comes from above," the Bible says--tell me that slacklining is not a good and perfect gift.Therefore, I think that doing things you love is not a waste of time, because it was blessed by God. I think that the things we do in our lives because in some way, they connect with some deep part of us, are worthy of the hours that make up our limited days. And maybe heaven will be a place where we get to do these things forever, with God watching us face to face.

All I know for sure is, if I ever get a tattoo, it will say memento mori.