To Live and Die

I have this wild notion that we're meant to live and die for bigger things than whatever we do to earn a paycheck.

Don't get me wrong: I love my work. I'm very privileged to be on the bleeding edge of tech, using AI to redefine how marketing operations work is done, and generally not out in the field, taking fire, wondering what my next meal is going to be, or if I'll even have one. I've had enough MREs in my day to know that I don't wish that ish on anyone.

As I've been noticing our rhododendron blooming over the past couple days, my recurring sauna thought has been about how temporary life is. This tree blooms every year for a week or two, and then all the flowers die and it reverts from a resplendent plant to just another bush. The comparison of life to fleeting mist is not lost on me, and in fact that particular biblical reference has stuck with me through the years.

Tango is 12 years old. I was saying to Haleigh recently how I've noticed I've been emotionally distancing myself from the inevitable: he's slowing down considerably and is already at a very senior age for his size. We don't know how long he has left, and that fact absolutely crushes my spirit. Perhaps one of the greatest cosmic injustices I've born witness to is the purity of dogs relative to their short lifespans.

But as a middle-aged person myself, I can appreciate that life is not about the outcome, but about the experiences we have while we are able. Or as Brandon Sanderson has so eloquently put it:

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey over destination.

Tango won't live forever.

Neither will I.

But the rhododendron will bloom next year. And life will march ever onward.

So I arrive again at my original premise: that we're meant to live and die for bigger things than what takes up our day to day. The question is: what then?

I knew this answer as a child and it hasn't changed over the almost 42 years I've been alive: it's for each other.

While I distress over our aging hound, I don't know how long I have left. I don't know what meaningful impact I'll have on the human condition – the blast radius is probably the cosmic equivalent of a hand grenade. Or let's be honest: a black cat.

But I do know I've had a positive impact on a few lives.

That life is precious.

That you, and I, are what life is meant to be lived for.

And that above all, that is enough.

Reflecting on all of the above, I wrote a haiku about our rhododendron:

Rhododendrons bloom
Love the moment for what is
Fear not what will end