I've been thinking about what it would mean to want what's coming — not just accept it, not just endure it, but actually want it. Most of us can't get there. But I think the practice of it, even imperfectly, changes something.
Seneca says he writes each letter as if death might call him away mid-sentence. I'm writing this one that way too.
Not to be morbid. To be present. The two are closer than we usually let ourselves notice.
I used to think the goal was more time. Now I think the goal is fewer days spent against the grain — fewer hours doing what I don't want to do, wanting what I don't have, arriving somewhere and already planning the exit. That's the real poverty. Not death, but that.
There's a line I keep turning over: that which is bound to be a necessity if you rebel, is not a necessity if you desire it. He's talking about death, but he's also talking about everything. The meeting you dread. The conversation you've been avoiding. The change that's already happening whether you want it to or not. Resistance doesn't change the fact — it just adds suffering to it.
I'm not there yet. Some days I manage it. Most days I'm still negotiating with the inevitable. But I know the direction.
To have lived long enough depends neither on years nor days, but on the mind. I want us both to get there — full, not just long.
Write back. I want to know you're still in it.
Yours, gladly —