Each week, I’m going to be sharing some things I’ve learned from stuff I’ve read. Topics may range from philosophy to sports and anywhere in between.
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You’re dying.
Maybe you’re in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones as the scene cuts to black. Or, maybe you’re all by yourself in a retirement home, half-forgotten by friends and family.
Either way, you notice your breaths becoming more shallow. Perhaps, you have thirty seconds left, sixty tops.
What flashes through your mind?
Maybe you think about all those long, endless summers as a child, back when you had the energy to run from sunrise till sundown.
Or do you turn to the darkness? Perhaps you think about all the time you spent keeping pace with your peers on the career treadmill, only to never look up and enjoy life.
Whatever it is you think in those final moments, I can almost guarantee that you wish you had more time to do things over again. With just a little bit more time, you could have cherished the loved ones around you a bit more. Or, maybe you could have done a better job of easing the suffering of those around you.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have lived The Perfect Life, many of us will feel some sense of regret just before our inevitable demise… So what do we do about it?
Not much.
After I finish writing this article, I’m gonna take a shower. You’re probably reading this on the toilet on a Friday morning, so you’re about to get your day started. And that’s normal.
It’s a pretty core part of our humanity to not dwell on our mortality for too long. Our brains are just heavily wired to focus on the present moment rather than our inevitable death.
Biologically, short-sightedness is definitely an advantageous trait to have. Being hyper-focused on immediate goals and surroundings surely helped our ancient ancestors respond quickly to predators and other nasty things in the wild. I mean, perhaps, there were ancient humans who had a more reflective disposition. They were undoubtedly the preferred type of human for our ancient predators.
In short, we’re biologically programmed to be biased towards the present moment. Thankfully, we are at least somewhat self-aware enough to recognize our shortcomings, so we certainly do make attempts to truly internalize our mortality.
Moving forward in this newsletter, I’m going to sprinkle in some mortality reminders every now and then. These mortality reminders are various tactics that societies around the world have used to trick our short-sighted brains into appreciating our finite existence.
Today, let’s talk about how late-Medieval Dutch artists used their talents to remind us of death.
Mortality Reminder #1, Vanitas
After religious artwork, vanitas was arguably the most popular type of Dutch artwork in the 16th and 17th centuries. Vanitas is artwork that contrasts symbols of life and vitality with those of death and decay in order to remind the viewer that death is lurking even in the most vibrant, lively settings.
In the painting above, you see a young man with red cheeks and a colorful outfit, looking off to the side, as though he’s got things to do and places to be. Yet, amidst all the energy we get from the young man, there’s a big skull in the painting, as though to remind the viewer, “All of this youth and fanciful clothes will be reduced to a skull and some bones in no time.”
Not very subtle. Other vanitas are a bit sneakier though.
Here, you can see a wonderful spread of fruit and seafood, the remains of some extravagant, lively dinner party.
But is it so wonderful? Some of the shrimp and seafood is off the plate, and who knows how long they can stay at room temperature before going bad. And what about those grapes? They’re likely pretty juicy and tasty now, but is that a hint of mold you see along the edges?
These are the thoughts that come with vanitas. Initially, you see vitality and life, but the longer you look, you can’t help but see the rot and decay that permeates from just about everything in the painting.
Maybe, the next time you look in the mirror, you can treat your reflection as a vanitas painting. Are those wrinkles? A receding hairline? Some white hairs? Perhaps you’ll realize that you’re not all that different from the slowly decaying food that’s left out on the dinner table too long.
And that brings me back to the original question I posed. As you lie dying on your deathbed, what flashes through your mind?
Ideally, by the time you’re on your deathbed, you would have thought about this question often and have lived your life well because of it. That’s precisely what the long-dead Dutch vanitas painters would have wanted.
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