Our time is limited.

In the year 1843, a 30-year-old Søren Kierkegaard  published his first book. Eight months later, he published three books on the same day and the  next year four books in the same month. In total, as he reached the age of 33, he had published  sixteen books in the span of just three years.

Then, another year went by and we find this  remark in Kierkegaard’s journal: “How strange that I have turned 34. It is utterly inconceivable  to me. I was so sure that I would die before or on this birthday that I could actually be tempted to  suppose that my birthday was erroneously recorded and that I will still die on my 34th.

” Why did he find that so strange? When Kierkegaard’s father was a shepherd boy, he has  cursed God for letting him and his family starve. Later, he came to believe that by cursing God he  has cursed himself and as a consequence of this, none of his children may reach the age  of Christ, which is 33.

Before reaching adolescence, Kierkegaard has lost five out  of seven siblings, leading him to believe that the curse is real and that his life  too will have to come to an end soon. Kierkegaard didn’t have the luxury of believing  that death is somewhere decades away, too far to be considered, too far to be of tangible  relevance. Kierkegaard could not unsee, that not unlike all of us, he was desperately  running out of time to do the things that he wanted to do in life.

So, if he wanted to publish  a book, if he wanted to discuss the fundamental questions of religion, theology and philosophy –  he had to do it now. He died at age 42, leaving behind one of the most profound and influential  bodies of work in the history of mankind. Meanwhile, in the year 1849, a 27-year-old Fyodor  Dostoyevsky has been sentenced to death for belonging to a literary society that the tsarist  regime deemed dangerous.

Together with the other members he was to be executed on a public square  in Saint Petersburg as a warning to the masses – there, they were read their death sentence, put  into white shirts, they were allowed to kiss the cross, ritualistic sabers were being broken over  their heads … They were brought to the stakes and at the last minute, a pompous announcement  was made that the tsar was pardoning their lives — the whole spectacle being orchestrated as  a cruel publicity stunt to depict the despot as a benevolent ruler. Then, the real sentence was  read out – the group-members were sentenced to four years of Siberian labour camp. However cruel the spectacle was, Dostoyevsky was elated with relief,  reborn into a new cherishment of life: “Brother!

” he writes in a letter, immediately  following the event. “I’m not despondent and I haven’t lost heart. Life is everywhere, life is in  us ourselves, not outside.

There will be people by my side, and to be a human being among people  and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not  to lose heart — that’s what life is all about, that’s its task. I have come to recognize that.  The idea has entered my flesh and blood… The head that created, lived the higher life of  art, that recognized and grew accustomed to the higher demands of the spirit, that head  has already been cut from my shoulders… But there remain in me a heart and the same flesh and  blood that can also love, and suffer, and pity, and remember, and that’s life, too!

If anyone remembers me with malice, and if I quarreled with anyone, if I made a bad  impression on anyone — tell them to forget about that if you manage to see them. There is no bile  or spite in my soul, I would like to so love and embrace at least someone out of the past at this  moment. […] When I look back at the past and think how much time was spent in vain, how much of it  was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in the inability to live; how I failed to  value it, how many times I sinned against my heart and spirit — then my heart contracts  in pain.

Life is a gift, life is happiness, each moment could have been an eternity  of happiness. If only, the youth knew! ” After a prolonged period in Siberian exile, a  40-year-old Dostoyevsky returned to his writings, publishing some of the most influential works  concerning anxiety of death, man’s freedom and faith.

His message – we are desperately,  hopelessly free to choose what kind of life we are living. The choice can be paralyzing.  But with death waiting at our doorstep, we have to gather the courage to choose!

At the end of his life, Socrates was sentenced to death by poison. In moment prior to fulfilling  his sentence, he contemplates the relation between truth and death. He says: “The one aim of those  who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death”.

Imagine lying on your death-bed, looking back on your life. How would you  evaluate the life that you’re living right now? With this “death-bed” perspective, if you  could travel back in time to this present moment, would you change your current existence?

Questions  such as this one, when contemplated deeply enough, can bring about a profound shift in our  thinking – for one thing, when we are truly aware of our own mortality, our petty everyday  worries and strivings tend to fall away as naturally as leaves from an autumn tree. This is the reason why stories about people encountering death, rather than haunting, can  be also up-lifting, reminding us that too often in life we both intellectually and emotionally  focus on things that would be of no importance if we were facing death. Maybe we’re overwhelmed  by a hundred little expectations, a hundred little things that we have to do, we can feel fractured,  dis-oriented in life – but contemplating our mortality can lend us a new perspective, one  of deep focality, since in the face of death, only few things remain truly important.

“Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life,” Seneca writes. “Let us  postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day.

. . The one who puts the finishing touches  on their life each day is never short of time.

” Contemplation of death can lead us to a life,  filled with no, or at least less, regret. Too many decisions in life are made with the supposition  that we still have time to indefinitely put off the things that we want to experience and  achieve. One of the biggest regrets that people tend to have, is not spending more time with  their loved ones.

So, the Stoic philosophers stressed the importance of contemplating not just  our own mortality, but also the mortality of our loved ones: “When you kiss your child,” Epictetus  writes, “say that you are kissing the mortal: for everything that is of the body is mortal /…/” Japanese aesthetics have a useful term for the acceptance of the transience and imperfection of  things in the cycle of life and death, wabi-sabi. Coming to see the beauty of imperfect states, we  can cultivate an acceptance of our own mortality, in contrast to western aesthetics, that for  the large part of history, had been focusing on perfection, an angel’s viewpoint, the point  of view of eternity, all the while tempting us with ideas of immortality. If we learn to  see the beauty in transience, we could see the beauty in the fact that our lives and the  lives of others too do not extend forever.

This attitude can aid us in overcoming  the ever-emerging state of forgetfulness or avoidance of our mortality and the morality of  those close to us. Rather than to spend our lives distracting ourselves with everyday concerns and  activities, confronting the reality of death can lead us to live an authentic life, one true  to our deepest aspirations and desires. In the words of the German philosopher Martin  Heidegger: “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely,  I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only  then will I be free to become myself.

” Our death is inevitable - although we never know  how and when this day will come. This should not encourage us to view death as something distant -  instead we should come to terms with it and live fully, authentically and with urgency. This is  easier said than done, for not only we have to learn how to come to terms with death, but  also how to live in the first place.

Here, we will find no easy answers, since as  you can see from my other Youtube videos, even as we carefully tackle this question from  many angles, it can often feel like we’re no step closer to an answer. But let's not put of the  question until our life is threatened by age, infirmity or life-threatning illness. We are  running out of time - we have to do it now.

When thinking about life, there must always  be a sense of urgency in the air. We have only one life. And to paraphrase Socrates, if we don’t  even examine it, what’s the point of living it?

On my channel, we look at movies, literature and  works of philosophy in the desire to examine our lives. I post new video-essays every week, so  if you want join my journey of self-discovery, feel free to subscribe. If you want to  show additional support, I have recently set up a Patreon account, where you can find  transcripts of my videos.

Thanks for watching.