We’re all dying
So start living
I’m Teague de La Plaine. This is Open Logbook—a public log of observations on humanity, shared systems, and the long future.
Society does a remarkable job of keeping us from noticing the obvious: we are going to die.
Not in an abstract way. Not someday. In a personal, inconvenient, unavoidable way.
So we’re encouraged to stay busy. To consume—objects, entertainment, food, sex, information. To keep our minds occupied enough not to wander into dangerous territory. Because once you really internalize that life is finite, a lot of things stop making sense. Entire industries depend on you not thinking too hard about that.
Hospice workers will tell you the same story over and over. At the end, people don’t talk about the house, the car, the résumé, or the numbers in an account. They talk about people. Moments. Love. Regret. The times they showed up—and the times they didn’t.
That pattern should bother us.
You will only get to kiss your wife a finite number of times.
You don’t know what that number is. None of us do. But we live as if it’s effectively infinite. As if there will always be another morning, another chance, another “later.” Infinity makes us careless. It turns presence into background noise.
Finitude does the opposite. It sharpens things.
The problem isn’t death. The problem is denial.
When death is kept at arm’s length—medicalized, euphemized, hidden—we start living as if life were a rehearsal. We delay what matters. We tolerate what we shouldn’t. We trade depth for distraction and call it comfort.
Memento mori isn’t about being morbid. It’s about being honest.
It’s the refusal to live under the illusion of “someday.” It’s the quiet understanding that time is not a resource you manage—it’s a gift you’re spending whether you notice or not.
Once you really accept that, priorities rearrange themselves without much effort.
People matter more than possessions.
Presence matters more than productivity.
Courage matters more than comfort.
And attention becomes sacred.
Scarcity always sharpens attention. When you remember that moments are countable, you stop skimming your own life. You listen a little more closely. You put the phone down sooner. You choose the harder conversation instead of the easier distraction.
This is the part most people avoid, because it requires feeling things fully.
Distraction protects us from anxiety, but it also numbs joy. To really live—to “suck the marrow out of life,” as Thoreau put it—means accepting vulnerability. Loving without guarantees. Choosing meaning over ease. Showing up even when it would be simpler not to.
So here are a few reminders I try to keep close. Not as rules. As bearings.
This day will not repeat.
Later is not promised.
People are not background scenery.
Attention is how you honor what matters.
Comfort is a poor substitute for meaning.
You don’t honor death by obsessing over it. You honor it by refusing to waste the life that precedes it.
Memento mori.
Not to frighten yourself—but to wake up.
All One/Teague
