If I died in a year ... would I?

This is pretty strange, as I've never set out to write these kinds of thoughts openly, but I find myself in a moment of unclarity, scraping for control over the future. I'm telling myself, you can't control the future, nobody can, and yet there is a strong inner critic, a part of me judging me into numbness. I'm missing some kind of a purpose and like G said, maybe just sitting around thinking about it, or writing about it does not necessarily help.

So, I did the weirdest thing today and sat down in front of my phone and video recorded myself talking for half an hour. Kind of like Morning Pages if you will, but instead of writing it down, which is just not fast enough for the mess in my head, I just said it all out loud. No judgment, no fear, pure honesty. It's not for anyone to see but me. And in this process, while I was trying to dream up my life and get a hint of a sense of purpose I sort of realized how assumptious I am living. I live assuming that I have time (and sometimes resources). And then from somewhere the question popped into my head: If I died in a year (just like spontaneously pluff) how would I have liked to have spent my last year?

Many things came up with this idea. I remembered a painting an ex had on the wall, a circular painting with a black background with a rainbow on it, underneath it written death. When I asked him about it he said it was there to remind him of death and impermanence. And once in a while I think about this. If I had a reminder every day that I only had an X amount of days left to live would I make different choices? Would I worry so much about not having it figured out with a career? And I started a little thought experiment. It's not probable that this will happen, but it could, so even though it's absurd it dances on a thin line between reality and fiction. And this is very exciting I find. This experiment. It feels profound.

So I was thinking what I would do if I lived like I had a very limited time left on this Earth.

And then I figured I'd be interested to know if other people are thinking about this every day and how it has impacted their lives. I would be curious to sit down with people and talk about this. And I would be very curious to look into why is this such a taboo when it can be such a source of energy. Death, in some way, so far removed from daily life in the West, such a privilege.

The last time I came face-to-face with death was on a Friday - but it does not matter which day it was, there was nothing special about it. That's the thing, when it happens it's so special - with a negative connotation, but same as birth it's like the most natural thing in the world. I was biking to work and I saw how a car didn't see the baby pigeon in the road, and how the baby pigeon did not realize in time to fly away and so ... And I thought, well, the poor animal should be fine, like in the movies, if it's not the tires then it's fine right? So I got off my bike, went up to the road and took the bird into my hand and layed it on the pavement, and then I felt awful about that and I layed it on some grass. Poor bird was not looking great. I was shaken by what I experienced and started crying. It reminded me of all the deaths in the world and my own ignorance of them. And that lasted that day, I cried about it again in the evening. I took a detour to visit the bird on my way home, it didn't make it. But then that day passed and I carried on living in my ignorance.

So I figured, today when this thought came up, it must become a very active present thing in my life to take it seriously. But if I somehow manage to take this thought seriously for a year, every day would something change? I have a gut feeling it really would.

Actually, the reason why I started writing about this is because I figured, that if this is what I assume now to be my truth, if I start living for death from now on, then one of the things I'd like to do in my time is to share some of my thoughts and explore. Maybe there are people out there who like this idea, or who have experience with similar experiments, and I'd like to research into that. And if it were to change my life, then I would like to have it documented somewhere so others could find it after I'm done and encourage them as well to try, and I don't know, maybe this way have some kind of impact on someone's life? If I could make at least one person's life better by existing, doing this experiment, sharing it perhaps then that's enough for a person who only has one year to live.

I am writing this and thinking, ai, is this disrespectful? Is it disrespectful to the people who do actually know a date when they can no longer be alive? And I think this is a great question to investigate. To talk to those people and ask them about it. I don't know. Is it disrespectful to people in war zones, who face the peril of death in a very non-fictitious way? I hope not, I think this experiment will only make me more aware of my privilege.

I hope I gain perspective from this experiment and a solid argument for choices that seem scary but necessary. I hope I can live in more gratitude this way for the experiences that I can partake in. I hope it makes me a happier person, not making myself smaller because I don't know what to do with my life. I hope this will provide me with a context in which I can live more authentically, listening to my inner voice.

Then I thought, I should probably make an app to help me keep track with it.