A friend shared a beautiful tombstone with a sundial and it served as a prompt to remember death. The sundial “says to those of us above ground: this is the “last hour to many – possibly to you”. What would you do if this was your last hour, day, week, month or year? Hour/day seems easier to conceive of. Nice to have a little advance notice and time to think about it eh. Just shooting the breeze a little… Maybe phone up loved ones, tell em what they need to hear good and bad, and make them brave. Whatever one is generally too chicken to do/say. Chickens are almost certainly less cowardly than most humans. Go out in the street/digital town square and loudly try and share whatever seem like the best ideas you learned in this life for this struggling humanity to find joy in one another and the earth; good luck guys. If it’s a whole year obviously stop as much as possible doing anything that isn’t EXACTLY what you want to be doing; differentiating one’s existence as a part of creation from any limited or misjudged human notions of what one should do...”

And to that I replied:

Thanks for this important message. Wise words. The idea that the goal before dying is to find the best ways to give everything away – that hits home.

A year? Probably adding to the list, write a book of aphorisms/wisdoms/educational autobiography and share it most goodly.

A day? For sure say hey to my loved ones and homies. Deuces

An hour? Oh there’d be hard feelings. Hugs and squeezes. A note of the nearly dead. Some sort of meditating to tune the star ship.

I had a few near death experiences, one intense one when on a trip with the professor I think we met via. Homeboy [WW] swam and saved my life, but for some time I didn’t think I’d be saved, as I was facing death in a slow but fast way. Slow enough to notice, fast enough not to tell a soul, as I got dragged further and further away by rip current at a remote coast on the Pacific. I tried all the things to remedy the situation. And then I tired. Wave after wave, it’s daunting, nature is so vast and exhausting, its flows so relentless and big. What would I do if I had moments left to live? I’d sorrow for the suddenness and shock with which I’d hit the hearts of those who’d miss me. I’d long to tell some folks my heart, mainly just that I love them dearly. I’d take deep comfort in knowing who already knows that love and it needs not saying. I felt no concern about stuff or unfinished projects, beyond the impact it’d have on those I loved.

It comes down to relationships. And the preciousness of breath.

Breathe easy frend