Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Not A FAQ
December 9, 2010

Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you’re about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you’re wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’
Carlos Castaneda (Journey to Ixtlan)

The air was sucked out of the room.  There wasn’t a sound.

“What’s your view of death?”

The question came from the back left corner of the room.  He looked to be in his mid-thirties from the podium where I stood.

I had been talking about shitting in a can. Every audience I speak to about my high altitude mountaineering exploits loves hearing me describe the mechanics of pooping in the cold.

“What’s your view of death?”

Where the hell did that question come from? People ask about dehydrated food.  They don’t ask about death.

I glance around the room full of Rotarians. To a one, they look as if they’ve just witnessed a horrible car crash, their jaws gaping open.

The question hangs in the stillness. “What’s your view of death?”

Time stops.  I continue to smile with my laser pointer held awkwardly in my hand. Images, fragments, in slow motion, flickering on the screen of my mind: The frozen bodies; the helicopters short hauling the dead; the climbing buddy I held in the front seat of his crushed car on a clear, crisp winter afternoon, feeling his life ebb away;  the SIDS baby I tried in vain to resuscitate; the long night I spent with a dear friend holding his hand in the stillness hours after his labored breath had ceased; the vision of my little orange kitten flattened in the road as I stood looking from the stoop of my boyhood home, my small chest heaving, tears streaming down my cheeks; the memory of my grandfather in his open coffin.

What do I say to this man?  That I don’t Like death?  That I’m not a Fan? That no one consulted me?  That I wouldn’t have voted for it? That it seems like a rude interruption, both the question and the concept?

What do I say? That it seems unfair? That it shouldn’t happen?  That it robs the joy out an otherwise pleasant experience?

Do I tell him that I deny it, that I pretend, that I make up stories?   Of invincibility? Of immortality? Of its nonexistence?

Do I lie and tell him that I never think about it?

Do I explain that, whenever I hear the word, I shove my fingers in my ears and go “la la la la la” like I’m doing right now?

Do I endeavor to share my terror in the face of loss?

Do I try to explain the swashbuckling, the ho-ho-ho cheated death again bravado, that we engage in to endeavor to appear courageous, dashing, and suave?

Do I try to justify that we go to faraway high and wild places to well and truly live, and not to die?

Do I try to explain that the mere possibility of death makes experience keener, more poignant, more vibrant, more elegant, more present, more real?

Do I try to explain that life is more meaningful, more intense, more vivid, more magnificent when lived out on the Edge, the edge of a ridge, the edge of light and darkness, the edge of sea and sky; the edge of storm and calm; the Edge between what we know to be Life and what we cannot know Beyond?

“What’s your view of death?”  The question now like rancid meat on a hook. I wonder how many seconds or minutes or hours have gone by.  The silence seems to echo. The faces still frozen.  The laser pointer unmoved.

I punt (as in I dodge):  I mumble something about a “risk-reward” analysis, about the dangers of driving, about the dangers of ordinary living.

Next question, please?  (Can we talk about shitting in a can again?)

But I’ve come back to that question again and again since that “could have been a lot less awkward” afternoon.

What if I had only six months to live?  What would I do differently?  Would I have the same job?  Would I have the same relationships? Would I do the same things?  Would I go the same places? Would I have the same ridiculous complaints? Would I engage in the same petty disagreements?

Would I surf the net? Would I update my status?

Do we live as if every minute matters?  Because it does.

Do we stand in gratitude and awe, radically present to the beauty and magnificence that surrounds us?

Do we live with passion and purpose and intensity and joy?

Do we live with Might: with power and possibility?

Or do we muddle?

Carlos Castaneda says that death is our only wise advisor. It is only within its shadow that we can know what living truly is.

Jack Kornfield reminds us: live without regret, live a path with heart.

Live Your Bliss Specialist Patrick Combs instructs: play bigger than yourself.

Leadership trainer Brendon Burchard teaches: live fully, love openly, and make a difference.

“What’s your view of death?”

I think it sucks.

I choose to live.

I suspect you do too.

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