I was in the shower this morning and this thought popped in my head. And my answer was I would not do anything differently. If I was making coffee, I would continue making coffee. As I was in the shower, I finished my shower.
You are dying every moment. Who you are is who you have been, and who you will be is who you are now. What do you focus on? What is valuable to you?
To me, it is odd to be my age and have so little to show materially. But I have followed a path somewhat monomaniacally all my life. I remember sitting in Mr. Johnson’s Sophomore Biology class and encountering the idea of Evolution through Natural Selection for the first time. It struck me instantly that such a doctrine did not require a God for its operation. I still remember that shock. I got a little dizzy.
Ever since then, I have been obsessed with building and understanding meaning systems at a thought level, with investigating how the world actually seems to work, with building something up to replace what was lost. That has been my life. It will be my life in five minutes. And five minutes after that.
One day I will end, but I can’t imagine anything more important, and I can’t imagine living my life any other way. I wish I had been more successful, but it has not been for lack of trying. I simply have a finite pain tolerance, even if it is quite substantial. I can’t do what I can’t do, and I have a pretty idea where that line is because I have tested it many times.