Death is certain, life is not

Welcome back to the podcast, I want to say I was very pleasantly surprised by response of the first one I done. Personally, I think it’s better to speak about some things than type, there is so much more life in voice than words on a screen. Plus it can be a bit more spontaneous and fun. I have realised one problem though, as this page grows, and as I sit here typing, I find it a little more and more difficult to write about things. It’s kind of an internal battle to find the correct words to talk about what I am feeling/thinking. Mostly because I care about what others think and don’t want to be judged but also because of my own perfectionism. I don’t want to read this in 10 years and cringe like I cringe at my 10 year younger self. The other day when I posted that long talk on my Instagram, the first plan was actually to post a video on here. I even spent 2 hours recording again and again, in different locations and even on different topics. I couldn’t do it. It’s quite funny that this is a problem actually. Where is the joy in life if I can’t live freely. It’s a dangerous way of living - living without caring what others think. But I guess that is what makes life worth living. Living freely - on the edge. When I meet someone that gets comfortable way too quick, I sometimes judge them. Like figuratively roll my eyes and think “what a weirdo” But now that I think about it, I am probably just jealous of how they live. So free in those moments, so alive. Speaking of which, the other day I was reading and came across this quote “Death is certain, life is not”, and I think about it a lot. These thoughts of imagining a future that is not here, is such a dull way of living. In those moments, I have lost my life. My most important part - my spontaneity, my fearlessness, my courage, my joy, my ability to be vulnerable, to be intimate. These are the brilliant moments of life, yet here we are, living in perpetual fear. It’s funny that we have nothing to lose but still have fear. No one has the ability to disturb our peace but us. Yet here we are, disturbing our own peace with our made up scenarios and our made up fears. Here is the diagram of what I was talking about in the podcast. If this post strikes great fear in you, as it does to me, then that is beautiful. You are more aware than you think. It takes courage to be aware of this. The fear is not even yours to begin with, it is your minds fear. How many times have you had a fear and it didn’t turn out to be a version of reality? Here we are, alive after all those fears. We forget about the fears that never came true, but the one that still have a possibility to come true, we cling on to. People talk a lot about how natural selection affected our DNA - our physical traits, but forget about the mind. The mind went through natural selection too. Millions of years ago, when all animals lived in the Savannah. Lived in the dirt, under the sun and in the shade of trees, there were two men going hunting; Ringo and Sukhjinder. They walked over a hill and in the distance could see a small body of water with lots of shrubs and some low hanging Mango trees. On the trees there were ripe, juicy Mangos. The two men looked at the tree from far and contemplated going closer. Ringo, was enthusiastic and with his mouth watering started walking closer to the tree. Sukh stopped walking and didn’t want to go closer. He had a feeling there was a pack of Lions nearby on the other side of the lake, hidden behind the shrubs. Ringo didn’t have this thought and they had no way to communicate. Thinking of his starving family back at home, Ringo decided to go ahead alone. Ringo got closer, and got onto the tree. Picking his Mangos, he didn’t hear the Lions surrounding him at the base of the tree. Needless to say, it didn’t end well for Ringo. The enthusiastic, fearless and positive one. The pessimist, Sukhjinder saw this all from afar and ran home to his family. I don’t need to explain the rest, you get the point. In this way, over millions of years, we have been bred to be more on the pessimist side. But in the modern world, there are no Lions. For most there is no fear of starving, of dying from conflict like a war, or from a disease. Most of us don’t have these problems. Instead, we fear to be alone, we fear to be vulnerable, we fear to be taken advantage of. We fear to lose things we have attached ourselves too, our house, our job, our place in society, our car, our friends, our family. It takes great courage to embrace the unknown. You shouldn’t be scared of death, that is certain. Experiencing life for what it is, that is uncertain. When was the last time you lived a day without fear? Do you think there is anything we can do to make us fearless? Thanks for reading (and listening), Harj 28/01/2022 Get full access to Cogitatio 🧠📚🏋️‍♂️ at harj.substack.com/subscribe