Memento Mori 記得你終有一天會死

今日選文

PS. 這封一樣是來自 Daily Stoic 的信件，但是這封信件沒有原文網址，所以直接引用全文。

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” — Seneca

The powerful and the wise have been finding ways to remind themselves of their mortality for centuries. Their art is filled with it. Their writing muses over it. Their desks were staged with totems to remind them of the urgency of life. They would keep reminders close to their body too, wearing memento mori rings, cufflinks, even tattoos. They never wanted to forget: We can go at any moment.

The Stoic finds this thought invigorating and humbling. Remembering this fact is one of the most important and critical of Stoic exercises.

It is not surprising that one of Seneca’s biographies is titled Dying Every Day. After all, it is Seneca who urged us to tell ourselves “You may not wake up tomorrow,” when going to bed and “You may not sleep again,” when waking up as reminders of our mortality. Or as another Stoic, Epictetus, urged his students: “Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible— by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire.” In Meditations Marcus Aurelius wrote “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” That was a personal reminder to continue living a life of virtue NOW, and not wait. The French painter Philippe de Champaigne expressed a similar sentiment in his painting "Still Life with a Skull," which showed the three essentials of existence - the tulip (life), the skull (death), and the hourglass (time). The original painting is part of a genre referred to as Vanitas, a form of 17th century artwork featuring symbols of mortality which encourage reflection on the meaning and fleetingness of life.

This is only depressing if you miss the point. Used properly memento mori is a tool to create priority and meaning, one that generations have used to create real perspective and urgency. To treat our time as a gift and not waste it on the trivial and vain. Death doesn’t make life pointless but rather purposeful. And fortunately, we don't have to nearly die to tap into this. A simple reminder can bring us closer to living the life we want.

將每一天過成最後一天。

因為人生無常，所以我們要好好把握每一天。這是很簡單的提醒，但我有時候會想到，假如將每一天視作最後一天，會不會無法將眼界放長，會不會只想著玩樂而不願意累積？假設人生只剩下一點，你可能就不會去做一些三年之後才會得到報酬的東西，像是閱讀、寫作等等都需要持續不斷的累積才會有意義，那這樣會不會反而對未來有害？再者，假如我知道我人生只剩下一天，我覺得我會拿去享樂，而不是工作。有一段時間我還很心虛是不是自己太懶散了才會有這樣的想法。但是有一天突然就想通了。個性固然是一部分，但最重要的是想的角度。「假如人生只剩最後一天，你會想做什麼」和「假設人生只剩最後一天，你能夠問心無愧嗎？」得到的答案顯然不一樣。因為人生很短，所以努力將時間放在有意義的事情上，少滑一點社群，多寫一點文章。這樣的意識能讓你將目光放在短時間很痛苦（相較於寫文章，滑社群比將想法化為文字簡單多了）但做了之後會讓你覺得充實的事情上。

看到這篇其實讓我聯想到之前看《Keep Going》寫到的每天看訃聞。第一用處是能讓你覺察到自己和死亡其實很近。第二是讓你觀察這些名人到底是怎麼被總結自己的人生。「你想被人怎麼記得，就做那樣的事」不過話說回來，國內的報章雜誌好像比較少訃聞的專欄，目前我看國外的比較多，像經濟學人、紐約時報甚至都是很好的語言學習材料。

睡覺時想著「我可能明天就再也沒有起來了」，起床時想著「我可能在也沒有機會躺到被窩上了」，因為你永遠不知道下一刻會發生什麼事，所以有想做的就要立馬去做。為自己的人生而活，而不是為了自己的怠惰。