We can’t control timing of death, just what we do as we’re waiting

By David McElroy · September 7, 2014

Three stories caught my eye in rapid succession Saturday night. They were all three about deaths of people I didn’t know, but they left me with an uneasy feeling that I’m not really living my life. Maybe I’m just sitting around waiting to die.

The first was about a victim of the serial killer Jack the Ripper. Although she’s been dead for 126 years, I saw a picture of a man with the blue and brown shawl she was supposedly wearing when she died.

The next story was about a theatrical actress in Chicago who was killed Saturday when a falling tree struck her as she rode her bike. I don’t know anything about the woman, but her piercing eyes stared at me from the picture.

The last of the three stories was about a 34-year-old mother of two in Chicago who was killed this week when a stone gargoyle fell off an old church and hit her as she walked by. She was on her way to have lunch with her fiancé, who was the mother of her children.

None of these women realized she was about to die. One was unexpectedly murdered. The other two were victims of what could only be considered freak accidents. Seeing their stories in rapid succession like that made me think about the rest of us, including myself.

I have no idea when I’m going to die. I honestly believe I’ll be here for many years to come. Maybe it’s simple denial, but I’ve always thought I’d be one of those freaks who lives until 120 or something. But I have no way of knowing.

I could die in my sleep tonight. I could be struck by a car while I’m on a routine trip to get lunch next Tuesday. I could have a heart attack next week — or next month or next year — while I’m working. I have no way of knowing.

Death is waiting for me and will take me whether I’m ready or not. So why do I still act like a teen-ager who thinks he’s going to live forever? Why do I spend time on things that don’t matter to me — instead of making the time I have count?

What did I do Saturday? I watched a football game. (It was boring.) I slept late since I stayed up Friday night for absolutely no reason. I even napped a little Saturday afternoon. I spent a lot of time browsing Facebook, Reddit and other websites. I listened to some music. I sat in a restaurant for a few hours and browsed online. I chatted with a few people, but I neither said nor heard anything of consequence.

For the most part, I wasted a day. The only thing I can think of that made me happy and felt important was when I shot pictures of sunset. (It was a beautiful sunset. Here’s one of my pictures.)

When I die — whether it’s next week or 50 years from now — nothing I did today other than that one beautiful picture will matter to me. And that’s been the case for far too many days over the last five or six years.

The late Steve Jobs told a story in his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech that has stayed with me. (The speech is only about 15 minutes. I highly recommend the entire thing.) He said that every morning when he got up, he asked himself whether he was going to spend that day doing the things he would want to be doing if it were his last day on earth. He said if he had too many days in a row when he wasn’t doing what he would want to be doing if it were his last, he knew he needed to make changes.

I wouldn’t want what I did today to be my last day on earth. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve had a day that I felt that way about. Depending on which standard I used, I’d have to go back at least several years, maybe six or seven years.

The things that really matter to me are love and connection with another person and creating beauty in various forms. Other things matter, too, such as books and ideas and movies, but only when they’re supporting love and beauty in some way.

If I were to die right now and death were taking me away, I would ask myself why I wasted so much time reading other people’s arguments on Facebook. I’d wonder why I worried about other people being wrong. I would ask myself why I didn’t understand love and other people early enough to accept a woman who wanted to love me. I’d ask myself why I didn’t find someone who still did want to love me — someone who wanted to have children and create beauty and life together.

And I wouldn’t have good answers for myself.

I’m not ready to die. Not only do I simply fear my lack of adequate understanding of the entire process, but I haven’t done the things that will have made my life worthwhile. I’ve spent too many days and weeks and months and years stuck in idle.

I need to love and be loved. I need to understand a woman and have her understand me. I need to have children to love and nurture. I need to create beautiful things. I need to write things that might influence people and give them hope that their lives can be worthwhile. I need to find ways to change my corner of the world.

I need to live. Too much of what I’ve been doing is simply waiting to die.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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