The world is coming to an end.  It must be true because I read it in MCARP’s blog.

 I laughed my ass off at Mike’s blog.

Of course, it’s true — in a sense — that the end of the world is certainly coming, whether it’s global warming or an asteroid or the sun burning out. 

One suspects one’s own world will end before the world’s world comes to an end.

In all events, a certain fatalism is implicit in MCARP’s buddhist leanings.  As a jake leg Taoist, in my leanings too.  Of course, I’m also a depressive recovering alcoholic, so what do you expect from me?

The most fatalistic person I know is “Lucky”, a former funeral home employee.  You don’t even want to know.

But, you know, it’s just not reasonable not to recognize one’s own mortality.

Death will come to us all.

The question is HOW and WHEN, if not WHY?

I refuse to have my obituary read:  Long spent his final years of grave illness in seclusion, having lived past anyone who could remember when he was vital, social and deeply engaged in life and into the time that the only possible memory of him was as a sick old bastard with a sharp tongue.

Fuck that.

Don’t you wish you could die a hero?  Maybe saving a village of orphaned African children?

How will you ever die a hero unless you are heroic?

Don’t you wish you could die a warrior?  Turning the tide of some battle, literal or metaphorical? 

How will you ever die a warrior if you are never bold and fearless?

I want to live my life so passionately and well that every day really is a good day to die. 

No regrets.

Nothing left undone.

On any given day, I want every single person in my life who I love to know and to have heard from me recently that I love them.  I’m not there yet, but it’s my goal.

I want my personal integrity and reliability as a friend and as a lawyer to be respected and admired.

I want my kindness and generosity to spring to mind to those who hear of my death with grief and loss.

I want somebody to feel grief and loss at my passing and the more the merrier.

I figure I fall pretty short of the glory of God when it comes to how I’d like to be remembered compared to the reality of my life.  Good.  I also want to be known as someone who worked to make himself a better person and never stopped trying.

Is an unexamined life really a life not worth living?  How would an introspective narcissist like me know the answer to that one?