Thursday, June 4, 2009

Mortality isn’t what I’d qualify as light conversation on a Thursday or any other day, but between the coverage of missing plane debris and nukes detonating underground and church shootings and, just today, the passing of David Carradine, it’s certainly top of mind. And while I don’t like to dwell on it for too long, lest I end up paler than a Twilight superfan shopping for incense and powdered bat nuts at Hot Topic, it can serve as a sharp check-up on how I’m investing the time allotted to me.

Usually, though, it’s not the dire news stories that bring death to mind. No, the triggers are more oblique, and I can think of two specifically. One is related to messing up dates in e-mails. I’ll type 06/04/90, for example, and realize I’ll be long gone in 2090. The other reminder comes whenever screen performers pass. It’s, like, I just saw Carradine in Kill Bill a few years ago, or The Golden Girls are barely plural now. Granted, these were older stars, so it’ll be much more unnerving when actors and actresses progressively closer to my age start to croak.

There are no easy answers to this conundrum. It’s not even a conundrum, really, so much as the way things are. For me, the conversation continues to wend its way back to this idea of creating something great, something that will outlive me. I want to take the time given to produce a work that endures. This is as far as I tend to get, however, and the hope is to move beyond the abstract, find the concrete, and connect the dots.