Actually, this is what Yom Kippur is about. In many ways, the holiday is a dry run of your death. The Jewish tradition is to take stock of your live (a chebon hanefest -- an accounting of the soul) starting in Elul, the month before YK. You think about who you have wronged, make amends, apologize, then resolve to do better. You think about the areas where you have fallen short and how you can do better next year. If you are not too down on things, you can even think about the areas where you have succeeded and try to continue those. In the 10 days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, you kick it all into high gear. On Yom Kippur, in some communities, traditional Jewish men wear their kittel (a robe) that they will be buried in. (I don't have one.) You fast. Some of the liturgy is set up like a trial. God sits in judgment, the community confesses communally and prays for forgiveness. You are hungry and tired. If you take the drama seriously -- although perhaps not literally -- this is a dry run of what is possibly the last day or your life, or possibly the last year of your life if you were not "written into the book of life." By the end, if you do it right, you are feeling sorry for your mistakes and the people you have harmed, a bit closer to death, hungry and grumpy, and you really want a fresh start. And then guess what? It's over. You have been acquitted. This is not the last day of your life. And you can have a fresh start, and you can focus on all the things -- mutatis mutandis -- that Matthew noted.
The question is not simply whether you should think about the things you want to accomplish before you die. Of course you should. The deeper question is whether there are rituals and practices that help you do this.
I love this way of thinking about Yom Kippur and how rituals can support us in pursuing our deepest, most considered goals.
In a bit of shameless self-promotion, I just started a substack for my organization focused on the intersection between social impact and Judaism. I’d love to produce content developing ideas on this theme and would appreciate your feedback or even a guest contribution. If you’re interested, you can check out the first post here:
I’m with you on the factory farming and the wild animals, but I don't see any great need to save the humans. I think the animals would be better off without us.
Rabbits and foxes balance each other out. If the foxes kill too many rabbits, the foxes start to die off, and the rabbits come back.
We humans have somehow escaped the population game. We’ll just kill off all the rabbits and the foxes, the western black rhino and the Pinta giant tortoise with no consequences. Then we’ll kill some other animals instead.
We'll keep killing until it's just the rats and us left. I think all those other animals would be better off without us.
BTW BB, I don't know whether this recent news kind of disproves utilitarianism. An elderly mother's son has died, her family did not tell her and made an AI simulation, who was texting with her. From the utilitarian perspective, if she dies without ever having experienced this grief, she is better off. But there is something intuitively horrible about this.
Maybe this is an argument for rule utilitarianism, like a rule like "do not lie to people about extremely important life events, even if it would have positive-sum utility".
The greatest gift ‘life’ offers many of us is physical death — which is the greatest relief possible, that being from all corporeal suffering — however frightening an anticipation/event death itself will likely be due to its total unknown and finality.
[Understandably, a lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter. Yet, many other people believe/fear they’ll eventually get bored in any eternal afterlife. However, if corporeal death totally relieves us from time — i.e., all-encompassing physical motion — there should be no boredom in the afterlife, perhaps even while playing the harp. Just a thought.]
I read how Dr. Sigmund Freud postulated that, regardless of one’s mental health and relative happiness or existential contentment, the ultimate goal of our brain/mind is death’s bliss because of the general stressful nature of our physical existence, i.e. anxiety or “stimuli”. It’s important to clarify, however, that it’s not brain death per se that is the aim but rather the kind of absolute peace that only brain death can offer in this hectic, emotionally turbulent world.
From my understanding, even Buddhism [or is it Zen Buddhism?], which in large part is the positive belief in reincarnation, acknowledges that life generally is suffering or hardship interspersed with far fewer instances of genuine happiness.
Regardless, when suicide is simply not an option, it basically means there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from our literal life sentence.
Ergo, the following lines extracted from a much larger piece:
-----
I awoke from another very bad dream, yet another horrid reincarnation nightmare
where having blessedly died I’m nonetheless bullied towards rebirth back into human form
despite my pleas I be allowed to rest in permanent peace.
I ask for the blessed purpose of my continuance. I insist upon a practical purpose!
Give me a real purpose, I cry out, and it’s not enough simply to live
nor that it’s a beautiful sunny day with colorful fragrant flowers!
I’m tormented hourly by my desire for emotional, material and creative gain
that ultimately matters naught. My own mind brutalizes me
like it has a sadistic mind of its own.
I must have a progressive reason for this harsh endurance!
Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves
they sincerely want to live when in fact they don’t want to die,
so great is their fear of Death’s unknown?
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes.
Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
Very interesting! I agree it is about legacy. What legacy will I leave? Both for those I matter to personally and humanity. Will I leave a positive mark on my children's lives? On others I love?
Also it is interesting how thinking you will soon die can force you into action. To seriously evaluate your impact. I often think, if I was to live forever maybe I would just become totally unproductive and selfish. There would be no urgency, and far less purpose. The Impermence of life creates purpose.
When I was younger I used to think 'living everyday as though it was last' meant almost indulging in hedonistic enjoyment. No - the fragility of life, and the absolute certainty of death is arguably the greatest driver for making a postive and meaningful contribution.
This is going to be a canonical EA piece in like 5 years.
Reading this was a very nice way to start off the day.
Sometimes the universe seems to send things to your inbox at the exact time you need them most. Thanks
Nice to hear, thanks.
Actually, this is what Yom Kippur is about. In many ways, the holiday is a dry run of your death. The Jewish tradition is to take stock of your live (a chebon hanefest -- an accounting of the soul) starting in Elul, the month before YK. You think about who you have wronged, make amends, apologize, then resolve to do better. You think about the areas where you have fallen short and how you can do better next year. If you are not too down on things, you can even think about the areas where you have succeeded and try to continue those. In the 10 days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, you kick it all into high gear. On Yom Kippur, in some communities, traditional Jewish men wear their kittel (a robe) that they will be buried in. (I don't have one.) You fast. Some of the liturgy is set up like a trial. God sits in judgment, the community confesses communally and prays for forgiveness. You are hungry and tired. If you take the drama seriously -- although perhaps not literally -- this is a dry run of what is possibly the last day or your life, or possibly the last year of your life if you were not "written into the book of life." By the end, if you do it right, you are feeling sorry for your mistakes and the people you have harmed, a bit closer to death, hungry and grumpy, and you really want a fresh start. And then guess what? It's over. You have been acquitted. This is not the last day of your life. And you can have a fresh start, and you can focus on all the things -- mutatis mutandis -- that Matthew noted.
The question is not simply whether you should think about the things you want to accomplish before you die. Of course you should. The deeper question is whether there are rituals and practices that help you do this.
I love this way of thinking about Yom Kippur and how rituals can support us in pursuing our deepest, most considered goals.
In a bit of shameless self-promotion, I just started a substack for my organization focused on the intersection between social impact and Judaism. I’d love to produce content developing ideas on this theme and would appreciate your feedback or even a guest contribution. If you’re interested, you can check out the first post here:
https://firstrung.substack.com/p/not-only-for-ourselves
Happy Passover!
https://hymnary.org/text/do_not_wait_until_some_deed_of_greatness
gonna remember that last line for a long time!
I love this. Sometimes we can get too caught up in turf wars — it’s great to reflect on the core reasons EA is so important.
Yessir
I’m with you on the factory farming and the wild animals, but I don't see any great need to save the humans. I think the animals would be better off without us.
We are animals and there are billions of us. The rabbit would be better off without the fox, should we also take all the foxes with us?
Rabbits and foxes balance each other out. If the foxes kill too many rabbits, the foxes start to die off, and the rabbits come back.
We humans have somehow escaped the population game. We’ll just kill off all the rabbits and the foxes, the western black rhino and the Pinta giant tortoise with no consequences. Then we’ll kill some other animals instead.
We'll keep killing until it's just the rats and us left. I think all those other animals would be better off without us.
We're actually fantastic for wild animals and we are only getting better (unless conservationist get their way).
See: https://imgur.com/F3zfQEl
BTW BB, I don't know whether this recent news kind of disproves utilitarianism. An elderly mother's son has died, her family did not tell her and made an AI simulation, who was texting with her. From the utilitarian perspective, if she dies without ever having experienced this grief, she is better off. But there is something intuitively horrible about this.
Maybe this is an argument for rule utilitarianism, like a rule like "do not lie to people about extremely important life events, even if it would have positive-sum utility".
The greatest gift ‘life’ offers many of us is physical death — which is the greatest relief possible, that being from all corporeal suffering — however frightening an anticipation/event death itself will likely be due to its total unknown and finality.
[Understandably, a lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter. Yet, many other people believe/fear they’ll eventually get bored in any eternal afterlife. However, if corporeal death totally relieves us from time — i.e., all-encompassing physical motion — there should be no boredom in the afterlife, perhaps even while playing the harp. Just a thought.]
I read how Dr. Sigmund Freud postulated that, regardless of one’s mental health and relative happiness or existential contentment, the ultimate goal of our brain/mind is death’s bliss because of the general stressful nature of our physical existence, i.e. anxiety or “stimuli”. It’s important to clarify, however, that it’s not brain death per se that is the aim but rather the kind of absolute peace that only brain death can offer in this hectic, emotionally turbulent world.
From my understanding, even Buddhism [or is it Zen Buddhism?], which in large part is the positive belief in reincarnation, acknowledges that life generally is suffering or hardship interspersed with far fewer instances of genuine happiness.
Regardless, when suicide is simply not an option, it basically means there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from our literal life sentence.
Ergo, the following lines extracted from a much larger piece:
-----
I awoke from another very bad dream, yet another horrid reincarnation nightmare
where having blessedly died I’m nonetheless bullied towards rebirth back into human form
despite my pleas I be allowed to rest in permanent peace.
I ask for the blessed purpose of my continuance. I insist upon a practical purpose!
Give me a real purpose, I cry out, and it’s not enough simply to live
nor that it’s a beautiful sunny day with colorful fragrant flowers!
I’m tormented hourly by my desire for emotional, material and creative gain
that ultimately matters naught. My own mind brutalizes me
like it has a sadistic mind of its own.
I must have a progressive reason for this harsh endurance!
Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves
they sincerely want to live when in fact they don’t want to die,
so great is their fear of Death’s unknown?
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes.
Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
Very interesting! I agree it is about legacy. What legacy will I leave? Both for those I matter to personally and humanity. Will I leave a positive mark on my children's lives? On others I love?
Also it is interesting how thinking you will soon die can force you into action. To seriously evaluate your impact. I often think, if I was to live forever maybe I would just become totally unproductive and selfish. There would be no urgency, and far less purpose. The Impermence of life creates purpose.
When I was younger I used to think 'living everyday as though it was last' meant almost indulging in hedonistic enjoyment. No - the fragility of life, and the absolute certainty of death is arguably the greatest driver for making a postive and meaningful contribution.
It's a good point, and one I've thought of throughout middle age.
Unfortunately, all I can think of is 'revenge on feminism', and I'm half Ashkenazi and not very macho so I can't join the manosphere. It's a pity.
(I'm mostly joking.)