Time: Mortality & Fear of Death
The top regrets of the dying are rooted in how they used time.
What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?
While promoting a John Wick movie on the talk show circuit, Keanu Reeves is giving a punchy plot description on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Moving his hands wildly, Reeves explains: "It's the end of the universe. It's the end of time-space continuum. It's all over."
Keeping it light, Colbert jokes: “So you're facing your own mortality and the mortality of all existence” before asking, "What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?"
He takes a deep breath. Reeves’s daughter Ava was stillborn in 1999 on Christmas Eve. He separated from his partner Jennifer weeks later, and she died 18 months later in a car crash.
And then replies: “I know the ones who love us will miss us.”
The top regrets of the dying are rooted in how they used time.
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself... not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I didn’t work so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
How much of human behaviour is rooted in the fear of death?
What are we buying? Humans are sold a lot of things because [writers/ marketers/ politicians] capitalise on the discomfort people feel about their own mortality. Brands uncover an emotional need related to this fear and manufacture desire for it, often in the form of premium mediocre aspiration.
Or selling? Great [writers/ marketers/ politicians] connect with audiences through plots fueled by primal drives—often survival, protection, or fear of death.
The Why Test: Repeating "Why?" long enough for any "problem" generally ends with the fear of death. Scrolling the client list of a marketing agency launching direct-to-consumer tech brands collectively valued at billions of dollars is a strange way to test it.
Reflecting on Life and How We Spend Time
Money, power, & fame as proxies. Most people want the people they love to be proud of them and try to use money, power, and fame as proxies for what they've been missing in life, usually love, presence, or time.
The story you tell yourself about your life matters. Making sense of what's happened in your life is foundational to the purpose and meaning you find it. Overcoming the tyranny of language can be a helpful way for some people to move beyond traumatic events. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, explains more in this podcast interview.
Memory. Memory is a messy thing and depends wholly on who’s telling it. Sarah Treem, creator of The Affair, a television series that often re-told the same scene through the lens of different characters noted: “It’s not a science. It’s fickle and it’s capricious and it changes. It has a lot to do with the perspectives of the people who are telling it.”
Listen, there's something you need to hear. "If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we'd drown you in meaning." (Overstory by Richard Powers)
