Eventually
A friend of mine passed away earlier this week. It was sudden, but not necessarily unexpected. He'd been diagnosed with cancer several months ago. It seemed like it would be manageable, until it wasn't.
I've found that death is always a shock. It just hits differently depending on the circumstances.
For me, it always makes me reflect on time. We know it's a finite resource, but we can't quite comprehend how finite it is with an unspecified end.
Our mind is wonderful at coming up with stories for what might happen in the future. As each second goes by, it gradually adapts the narrative arc so we can have any number of cohesive lives.
We need this. It's a useful survival mechanism. The problem is that many of those stories are complete bullshit.
And that's fine, until we forget that. When they cause us to delay a decision because we aren't sure what will happen. When they cause us to not actually live.
Most of my stories have the same word in them.
Eventually.
I'll figure it out eventually. It'll come to me eventually. I'll know when I know.
Eventually is the part that's bullshit. It's a word that assumes an unspecified end.
The cost isn't the waiting. It's what eventually does to me while I wait. It's always running in the background, and everything else gets less of me.
I don't think death takes eventually away from us. I think it just reminds us we never had it.
So I'm going to start removing that word from my stories.