MOMENTO MORI! Remember your Death!

Momento Mori!

Ancient greeks have left us with numerous gifts including their philosophy, art and culture. One such gift is the maxim of Momento Mori which was embedded in all spheres of life of that great civilisation. Momento Mori simply means Remember your death! Your death is inevitable. We humans are the only creatures who have the previlege of being conscious of our death. And this consciousness and fear of our death drives our life. We want to be famous, we want to be rich, we want to be remembered. Why is that? Because we know we'll die. We want to be famous so as for the world to remember us after our demise, we want to be rich so as to have enough resources so that they can last us more than our life time. But we never ponder upon the inevitability of our death. Let’s suppose someone we know suffers from a deadly cancer. This thought will inevitably enter our mind as to what will we do, if we were in their place. And then we let the thought pass because we feel this can’t happen to us. We forget that we all have cancer. We just don't know when will that cancer take over our soul. It might be tomorrow, it might be in 4 years or 40 years. We never know. But it is inevitable. This principle of inevitability is not to invoke a depressing or nhilistic mindset. Infact the rather opposite, this inevitability is to free us. The rememberance of the fact is not to invoke anxiety, rather to invoke excitement. You realise how precious each minute of your life is and you will start to prioritise what really matters. Your efforts will be directed towards your purpose. Your life becomes a gift and you succeed in transforming the most dreaded reality of death into an opportunity.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”. The greatest roman emporer kept his death in his mind always to rule over the vast empire virtuously. He followed the doctrine of Momento Mori and wrote about in his personal dairy to help him through toughest phases of his life.

William Shakespeare, wrote in TEMPEST that “Every third thought shall be my grave”. A profound individual like Shakespeare pondering on every third thought relating to his death. The Bard of Avon, the greatest literary English writer would emphasise the importance of meditating on one's own death multiple times a day.

Seneca wrote in his Moral Letters to Lucilius, “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day…The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”

From the genesis of the earliest Greek philosophy, its tutors and students alike have followed the principle of Momento Mori to drive their life. This principle freed them. It gave them the power over their decisions. It is very important to remember that this principle is not for the indulgence of your pleasures. The fact that you might die tomorrow, doesn't mean that you could engage in cocaine or heroin or maybe attend an orgy. This indulence is nhilism. This is not what Momento Mori implies. Momento Mori implies that you might die tonight in your sleep, did you do the things that would fulfill you, that would swell your chest with pride, that would make you a better person. Your realisation of your death can liberate you. Constant reminder of this great inevitability can drive your life in the direction which it was always meant for. We all have limited time here. Each day we get is a gift. The most precious currency that we own is TIME. We can't be reckless with it. We need to free ourselves of this idea that we can delay things. There might be no tomorrow. The angry conversation you had with your parents might be your last. Your favourite song that you wanted to learn on your guitar might never happen. So take that leap of faith today. Embrace your death today. Do what you always wanted to do, as this might be your last chance. Momento Mori!