“Do that thing that honors life.” — John Kenney, I See You’ve Called in Dead

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. I have people in my life who question me for writing about death. I remind them that Memento mori is not a morbid fixation, it’s a call to action. We must acknowledge our ending in order to begin living fully, with urgency and focus.

John Kenney’s book is delightfully funny with an underlying sadness that washes over you in alternating waves. It’s a lot like life in this way. We fully savor joie de vivre precisely because we experience darker moments in our lives. How can we know the good if we never experience the bad?

If I repeat myself, it’s simply a reminder to do more of the things that honor life. We are each blessed to be alive for this brief window of time. Optimizing that which makes us most alive seems prudent given the certainty of our eventual expiration. Dance with life, even as we accept the reality that the music will end.