Chapter 14: Facing the End

After the Funeral

Kemal is forty-seven. Last week, his father died at the age of seventy-nine, after a short illness. Today was the funeral. Now the guests have gone home, and Kemal is sitting alone in his father's small flat, surrounded by his father's things: his reading glasses on the table, his coat on the hook, a half-finished crossword beside his chair.

Grief comes in waves. But alongside it, another feeling is growing that Kemal did not expect. His father was seventy-nine. Kemal is forty-seven. If he lives as long as his father, more than half of his life is already over. He thinks of the things he has always meant to do: learn to play the oud like his grandfather, take his children to see the mountains where his family came from, write down his father's stories, spend less time at work. He has always assumed there would be time. Now, in this quiet room, he is not so sure.

He picks up the crossword. His father has filled in about half of it in his careful handwriting. The other half is empty. Kemal feels his eyes fill with tears. His father did not know, when he started this crossword, that he would never finish it. Kemal wonders how many of his own crosswords, his own plans and half-finished projects, will stay empty.

Kemal's evening touches the question that sits beneath many of the questions in this book. We will all die. Every project, every commitment, every becoming will one day end. How should we live, knowing this? The existentialists did not look away from this question. This chapter explores what they, and some older voices, said about facing the end, and how their thoughts might help us live more fully now. Because this is a tender subject, I want to say at the start: if you are grieving, or if thoughts about death are weighing heavily on you, please be gentle with yourself as you read, and reach out to people who can support you.

The Fact We Avoid

Death is the one future event that every human being can be certain of. And yet many of us spend much of our lives not thinking about it. We know, in general, that we will die. But we rarely let ourselves feel it. We live as if there will always be more time.

There are understandable reasons for this. Thinking about death can be frightening and painful. Many societies keep death out of sight, in hospitals and funeral homes, and rarely talk about it openly. And busy lives leave little room for such thoughts. So the knowledge of our death stays at the edge of our awareness, like something seen out of the corner of the eye.

The existentialists believed that this avoidance has a cost. When we live as if we had unlimited time, we postpone what matters, drift through our days and treat our lives as rehearsals for some future that may never come. Facing our mortality, they suggested, is not morbid. It can wake us up to the preciousness and urgency of the life we actually have.

Different existentialists approached death in different ways. Kierkegaard, as a religious thinker, saw the honest thought of death as a call to earnestness, to take one's life and one's relationship with God seriously now, rather than later. Camus saw death as part of the absurd, a final silence that makes life's meaning entirely our own task. Sartre was suspicious of the idea that death gives life its meaning, arguing that death is simply the end of our possibilities, something that comes from outside and cannot itself be a project. De Beauvoir wrote movingly about the deaths of people she loved, including her mother, and about how death remains, for each person, a kind of violence, however natural it may be.

Despite these differences, they agreed on one thing: we should not hide from the fact of death. Facing it honestly, in whatever way fits our beliefs, can help us live with more clarity and courage.

The King and His Adviser

Long before the existentialists, an ancient writer told a short story that has often been used to think about how we spend our limited lives. The writer was Plutarch, who lived in the first and second centuries and wrote many biographies of famous people from the past. In his life of Pyrrhus, a king and military leader, he describes a conversation between the king and his wise adviser, Cineas. Here it is in my own plain retelling.

The king was planning a great war. Cineas asked him what he would do after he had conquered the land he was about to attack. The king answered that he would then conquer the next land beside it. And after that? asked Cineas. The king said that he would go on to conquer several more lands beyond. And after all these conquests, Cineas asked, what will we do then? The king smiled and said that then they would rest, enjoy themselves, drink together and spend their days in pleasant conversation.

Cineas then asked, in effect: what stops us from resting, enjoying ourselves and talking together right now? We already have everything we need for that, without all the bloodshed, danger and suffering of the wars.

Plutarch tells us that the king was troubled by this question, but that it did not change his plans. He went to war anyway.

The story has been retold many times because it touches a common human pattern. We often put off the things we say we really want, such as rest, time with loved ones, enjoyment, peace, until after we have achieved a long series of goals. But the goals keep multiplying, and the life we were working toward keeps moving further away. Meanwhile, time passes, and death, which none of us can postpone, comes closer.

Why Not Rest Now?

In 1944, Simone de Beauvoir wrote a philosophical essay that took its title from this ancient story: Pyrrhus and Cineas. In it, she explored the question that Cineas asked, and she gave a surprising answer.

One might expect de Beauvoir to side with the wise adviser: stop striving, rest now, enjoy what you have. But her answer was more complicated. She argued, in my own words, that human beings are not made for simple rest. We are always reaching beyond where we are, toward new projects and new goals. A life without projects, a life of only resting, would not satisfy us. It would feel empty. In that sense, the king was right to want to keep going, even if his particular project, conquest, was harmful.

At the same time, de Beauvoir suggested that our projects do not find their meaning in some final resting point at the end. There is no final point where everything is finished and we can rest forever, satisfied. The meaning of our projects lies in the projects themselves, in the reaching, the making, the connecting with others. And, as she would emphasize later in The Ethics of Ambiguity, our projects find their fullest meaning in relation to other people's freedom and projects, which continue after us.

So de Beauvoir's response to Cineas is something like this: we cannot rest now, because human beings always reach forward. But we should not imagine that our reaching will someday end in a final rest that makes it all worthwhile. The value is in the reaching itself, and in choosing good projects, ones that open possibilities for ourselves and others rather than destroying them. The king's mistake was not that he wanted to keep going, but that he chose a project of conquest and imagined that its meaning lay at the end, in a rest that would never come.

For Kemal, sitting with his father's unfinished crossword, these two voices offer two kinds of wisdom. Cineas reminds him not to postpone the things that matter until some distant future: learn the oud, visit the mountains, write down the stories, now. De Beauvoir reminds him that his life will never reach a moment when everything is complete, and that this is not a tragedy. His father's half-finished crossword was not a failure. It was a sign of a life still reaching forward until the end.

A Finite Life Gives Weight

Many people have noticed that the finiteness of life gives weight to our choices. If we lived forever, every choice could be postponed, repeated or undone eventually. Nothing would be urgent. Because our time is limited, each choice matters. Choosing to spend an afternoon with a friend means not spending it on something else, and there are only so many afternoons.

Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, described the absurd person as someone who lives with lucid awareness of death, without hope of an afterlife, and who therefore tries to live as fully and intensely as possible. For him, awareness of death was not a reason for despair, but a reason to love life more, to taste each day, to refuse to waste it in false hopes or empty routines.

This does not mean living in constant anxiety about death, or rushing frantically to fit in as many experiences as possible. It means living with a background awareness that our time is precious, which can help us choose what matters: being present with people we love, doing work we believe in, noticing beauty, saying what needs to be said before it is too late.

Many people who have faced serious illness or come close to death describe a change in how they see life afterwards: a new clarity about what matters, less patience for trivial worries, more gratitude for ordinary things. We do not need to wait for such an experience to learn from it. We can, gently and regularly, remind ourselves that our time is limited, and let that reminder guide our choices.

Some people keep a small reminder of this in their daily lives. It might be a photograph of someone they have lost, a stone picked up on a memorable day or a short sentence written inside a notebook. Many cultures have long had such reminders: old paintings that show a skull beside a vase of flowers, sayings about the shortness of life, festivals that remember the dead. These reminders are not meant to spoil the present. They are meant to make it vivid, as a candle seems brighter when we remember that it will burn down.

Would You Live It Again?

The nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who influenced many later existentialists, offered a striking thought experiment that is relevant here. In his book The Gay Science, published in 1882, in section 341, he imagined the following. Here it is in my own plain paraphrase.

Imagine, Nietzsche says, that at your loneliest moment a demon crept up to you and announced that you must live this same life again, exactly as you have lived it so far, and then again, endlessly. Nothing new would ever be added. All your joys and pains, all your thoughts, every small and every great event of your life, would return in exactly the same order. How would you receive this news? Would you sink down in despair and curse the demon for saying it? Or have you ever had a moment so overwhelming that you would reply that you had never heard anything more divine, and greet the demon as a god?

Nietzsche did not necessarily believe that life literally repeats itself. The thought experiment is a test. It asks: are you living in a way that you could affirm, that you could say yes to, even if you had to live it again and again forever? If the idea of repeating your life fills you with horror, that may be a sign that you are not living as you truly wish to. If you could imagine saying yes, even to the pain, that suggests a deep acceptance of your life as it is.

This thought experiment connects with the existentialist concern with death in an interesting way. Death makes our life finite, and we live it only once. Nietzsche's demon asks us to imagine the opposite, infinite repetition, and in doing so, it makes us look at our one life with new seriousness. Either way, the question is the same: are you living in a way that you can affirm?

For Kemal, the demon's question might sound like this: if you had to live your last ten years again, exactly as they were, would you be glad? His honest answer might be: partly. He loves his family and his life, but he has spent too much time at work and postponed too much. The question does not condemn him. It points him toward the changes he wants to make, so that the next ten years are ones he could say yes to.

When Death Comes Close

Thinking about death in general is one thing. Facing the death of someone we love, or a serious illness of our own, is quite another. In these moments, philosophy can offer some companionship, but it cannot remove the pain.

Grief is a natural response to loss, and it takes its own time. There is no correct way to grieve, and no timetable. Some people feel waves of sorrow for years. Others feel numb for a while and then sad later. Many feel a mixture of sadness, anger, guilt, relief and love. All of these are normal.

If you are grieving, please do not feel that you must use the ideas in this chapter to make sense of your loss quickly. It is fine simply to grieve. Talking with people who care about you, sharing memories and allowing yourself time can help. If your grief feels overwhelming, if it does not ease over a long time, or if it makes daily life very hard, a doctor, a counsellor or a grief support service can help.

It can also help to remember that grief is, in a sense, a form of love. We grieve because someone mattered to us. Kemal's tears over his father's crossword are a sign of how deeply connected they were. The existentialists did not offer easy comfort about death, but they understood that our relationships with others are among the deepest sources of meaning in a life. Grief is the shape that love takes when the person is gone.

And if thoughts about death ever become thoughts of ending your own life, please reach out for help immediately. Contact a crisis helpline, a doctor or emergency services. You do not have to face such thoughts alone, and they can change with support.

Four Lives Facing the End

Ingrid is twenty-nine. Last year, she was in a serious car accident and spent several weeks in hospital. She recovered well, but the experience changed her. Before, she had been planning to work hard for ten years and then "start living". Now, like Cineas, she asks herself why she should wait. She has not quit her job, but she has started taking the weekends seriously: hiking, painting, visiting her grandmother. She says that facing the possibility of death taught her that the future is not guaranteed, and that the life she was saving for later is happening now.

Yaw is seventy-five and has been told by his doctor that he has a heart condition that, while manageable, will probably shorten his life. After the first shock, he sits down with his wife and children and talks openly about what he wants for his remaining years. He wants to spend more time with his grandchildren, finish building a small boat he started years ago and make sure his affairs are in order so that his family will not be burdened. He talks with a qualified adviser about his practical arrangements. His children say that these conversations, though difficult, brought them closer than ever.

Leonor is fifty-two and works as a nurse in a hospice, caring for people in the last weeks of their lives. She has seen hundreds of deaths. People often ask her whether her work is depressing. She says that, in a strange way, it is the opposite. Being close to death every day has taught her to value life: to say "I love you" often, to forgive quickly, to enjoy small things. She says that most of her patients, near the end, do not talk about their achievements. They talk about the people they loved and the moments they shared. She has taken that lesson into her own life.

Kemal, from the beginning of this chapter, keeps his father's unfinished crossword in a drawer. In the months after the funeral, he makes some changes. He finds an oud teacher and begins lessons. He starts recording his mother's memories of his father, so that the family stories are not lost. He talks with his manager about working fewer late evenings. And he plans a trip with his children for the following summer, to see the mountains of his family's past. He does not know how much time he has. Nobody does. But he has decided not to keep postponing his life.

Ingrid, Yaw, Leonor and Kemal each came close to death in a different way: through an accident, an illness, daily work and a father's passing. Each of them allowed that closeness to change how they live. None of them stopped being afraid of death completely. But each found that facing it honestly helped them live more fully.

Practical Steps

First, allow yourself to think about it gently. From time to time, let yourself remember that your life is finite, not to frighten yourself, but to remind yourself what matters.

Second, ask Cineas's question. When you notice yourself postponing something important until after a long list of goals, ask: what stops me from doing some of it now?

Third, choose projects worth reaching for. Remember de Beauvoir's point that we will always reach forward. Choose projects that open possibilities for you and others, rather than ones that harm or exhaust.

Fourth, ask whether you could say yes to your life. Use Nietzsche's thought experiment as a gentle test. Where would your answer be "yes", and where "not yet"? Let the "not yet" guide some changes.

Fifth, talk about it with those you love. Many people find it helpful to talk openly with family about their wishes for the end of life. For legal or financial arrangements, seek advice from qualified professionals.

Sixth, seek support in grief. If you are grieving, allow yourself time, share your feelings with others and seek professional support if it feels too heavy.

A Short Exercise: Two Questions

This exercise takes about thirty minutes. It uses Cineas's question and Nietzsche's demon to help you look at your life with fresh eyes. If you are currently grieving or going through a very difficult time, you may prefer to leave this exercise for later.

Take a page and write at the top: "What am I waiting for?" Underneath, list the things you have been postponing until some future time: after the children grow up, after this project ends, after retirement, when you have more money or time. Be honest. Next to each item, write what stops you from doing at least a small part of it now. Some reasons will be real and important. Others may be habits or fears.

Then, in the middle of the page, write: "Could I say yes?" Imagine Nietzsche's demon asking whether you would be willing to live your past year again, exactly as it was. Write which parts you would gladly live again, and which parts you would want to change.

Finally, at the bottom of the page, write three things you will do in the coming months, so that next year is one you could more fully say yes to. Make them concrete and possible. They might include one item from your "waiting" list.

Keep this page and return to it once a year, perhaps on your birthday. Notice how your answers change.

Questions People Often Ask

"Isn't thinking about death depressing?" It can be, especially at first, or during times of grief. But many people find that gentle, regular awareness of death actually makes them happier, by helping them value their lives and let go of trivial worries. The aim is not to dwell on death constantly, but to let the knowledge of it bring clarity, gratitude and courage. If thinking about death makes you feel hopeless or frightened most of the time, please talk with a professional.

"How do the existentialists' ideas fit with religious beliefs about life after death?" Some existentialists, like Sartre and Camus, did not believe in an afterlife, and their thoughts about death reflect that. Kierkegaard was a Christian, and he saw the thought of death as a call to take faith seriously. Many religious readers find value in the existentialist call to face death honestly and live fully now, whatever they believe comes after. These ideas can be held alongside many different beliefs.

"Should I make dramatic changes after realizing that life is short?" Not necessarily. Sometimes the most important changes are small: more time with loved ones, fewer late evenings at work, saying what needs to be said. Dramatic changes can be right for some people, but they are best made thoughtfully rather than in the first shock of a loss. Kemal did not quit his job or leave his life behind. He simply stopped postponing the things that mattered.

Chapter Summary

Death is the one certain future event, yet many of us avoid thinking about it and live as if we had unlimited time. The existentialists believed that facing mortality honestly can wake us to the preciousness of life, though they understood death differently. In Plutarch's life of Pyrrhus, the adviser Cineas asks a king who plans endless conquests followed by rest why he does not rest now.

In Pyrrhus and Cineas (1944), de Beauvoir argued that human beings always reach forward and would not be satisfied by simple rest, but that the meaning of our projects lies in the reaching and in their connection to others, not in a final resting point. Camus urged living fully in lucid awareness of death. Nietzsche's thought experiment in The Gay Science, section 341, asks whether we could say yes to living our life again and again. Grief deserves time and support, and thoughts of ending one's life call for immediate help.

In the final chapter, we bring together the ideas of this book and look at how meaning can be made on ordinary days.