Daily Writing Prompt: How does death change your perspective?
For me the real question is how has my perspective on death changed? As a child, I realized that living things died but I felt inoculated from my own death since I still had many decades in front of me.
As a young teen I experienced grief after the death of my cat. It took about three days for the pain to begin to subside. The death of no person in my life so far has inspired such grief.
The fear of nuclear war loomed large when I was young but it also remained abstract. In fact quite a few doomsday scenarios have passed by me. The Doomsday Clock has become just a soft, background tick. My guess is that the End is Near warning has been sounding for as long as humans existed.
About three years ago, I started to become hyper-aware of my own death. Literally my life flashes before my eyes as my mind rewinds images from my past. On an off chance, I may have a couple of decades in front of me. Now it’s less abstract.
I remain cheerful when I confront each new day. The same old daily routine of living is fine with me and I don’t desire much adventure. I’m happy to quietly contemplate life and in turn contemplate death.
Half Baked Log 