Oh my dying life, it makes me smile.

I was contemplating life, being alive and what that "means". First thing I found is that from the moment of conception, we are dying. We "are alive", we "are living", but the actual condition of this living is a continual dying.

Is it possible for us to talk about our lives dying? I am not saying we are dead. No, we are very much "alive". Yet, our inevitable decay is the form of slow dissolution that is similar to the end of biological life. I mean that we never know which is our last breath but we know we are breathing our way to it.

So, in terms of positive "life affirming" value, what can be gained by conceptualizing our time as a dying and not living?

Firstly, I see that I own my dying and by extension, my death is me too. It is not an alien danger waiting to dissolve me with some dreaded mortality ray...it is simply me. Passing my time, filling the voids that consciousness discovers in my desires and thrown-ness.

Secondly, I don't fear myself and so I have no reason to fear my "end". I have the opportunity to embrace it as my destiny while all the time desiring to fill it with meaning that is only of value if it promotes the sense of well-being.

We run out of time...but we are an hourglass being, our sands flow down, the space in our heads becomes emptied of being.

Thirdly, the value of the time we have here is heightened if we confront the "painful" fact of our mortality ( the pain is an ego-function designed to heighten the value of identity while denying the true nature of our mortality, namely, our lives). "Your days will end, do something you want to do with the time you have." THIS is part of the Golden Rule and it implies a power of inspiration, a motivation to live your life with dedication...

and awareness.