Always be Dying

Why think about death on a beautiful day?

Death does not check the weather or the day. The old Stoics kept a skull on the desk to remember that every heartbeat is on loan. Today, we sneak reminders into coffee mugs that say “Carpe Diem”1 or into the wallpaper on a laptop. Either way, the point is the same, “life feels sharper when you remember it will end.”

Embrace Memento mori2 without lugging around a suitcase full of regrets.

Yet the goal is not to brood. The goal is to savor. Pre‑planning for the final curtain lets us spend less energy worrying about the lights going out and more energy dancing under them.

Write down stuffs - interesting, mundane, boring, just about anything. Write for your future self. But remember, that future-you is going to be a stranger reading the notes. Your memory is a leaky bucket. Future‑You will have different dreams, different passwords, and possibly fewer teeth.

Treat that person with kindness. Leave notes: what you believed, what you built, what made you laugh so hard you spilled tea on the keyboard. Write like you would write to a pen pal3 who shares your fingerprints but none of your context.

Skip the abbreviations. Explain the inside jokes. Tag the photos. You are building a time capsule that can be opened by anyone, including the version of you who no longer remembers where the capsule is buried.

A real-world footnote: Derek Miller’s farewell. In 2011, Canadian blogger Derek Miller published, The Last Post. It went live hours after he died. It is graceful, funny, and painfully alive. Because he wrote it early, he controlled the narrative long after he could not hit Publish. His site still echoes on the internet, a beacon for everyone who wonders how to say goodbye. (archive)

Own Nothing, Access Everything, Anywhere

Minimalism is not scarcity; it is mobility. Build systems so you can walk away without tears. The same idea works for life logistics. Picture a Go‑Bag for Life that is already waiting at every possible destination. No backpack straps, no airport security.

Just ubiquitous access to the things that matter:

These items lives in redundant, vaults scattered across the cloud (and maybe on a trusted friend’s drive). The trick is to separate ownership from availability. You can borrow access from anywhere without lugging hardware.

The Box

Flat files rule. Markdown and plain text will outlive today’s note‑taking apps. Password manager with an emergency kit. Print the kit, seal it, label it. Stateless authentication, WebAuth tokens or passkeys are tied to biometrics rather than a specific device.

Periodic drills. Once a quarter or once every half-year, pretend you lost every gadget. Retrieve your life from a library computer. Fix what breaks.

Rituals

Start practicing a routine, such as weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually, to write to the Future-You. Try disaster drills. Recover your vault on a fresh machine or public terminal. Learn to audit the archive. Remove clutter. Keep the cringe, future historians love that stuff. Sprinkle reminders in a calendar so the habit survives when willpower takes a holiday.

The Future-You is a Stranger Reading Your Current Notes.

Memento mori

Remembering death is a cheat code for living. Preparing your digital and emotional estate is a gift to every version of you and to the people who will clean up the mess. It costs a little more than a notebook, a password manager, and the courage to admit that the party ends.

Write the stories, stash the keys, rehearse the exit. Then close the laptop and go outside. The sun is still up, and you are still here.

References & Further Reading

  1. Carpe diem translates to “seize the day.” It is a rallying cry to step forward rather than stand by. When the phrase echoes in your mind, procrastination loosens its grip, opportunities appear closer, and excuses lose their shine. The mantra does not promote reckless impulse; it invites mindful urgency, an insistence on shaping the hours instead of watching them evaporate. ↩

  2. Memento mori translates to “remember you must die.” It is not a morbid slogan but a clear lens on how fragile and precious a single day can be. When you keep death in view, colors look brighter, small annoyances shrink, and priorities sort themselves. The reminder does not push you into despair; instead, it nudges you to live on purpose, to say the words, and to start the project while the clock is still ticking. ↩

  3. Pen pals (or penfriends, penpals, pen-pals) are people who regularly write to each other, particularly via postal mail. Pen pals are usually strangers whose relationship is based primarily, or even solely, on their exchange of letters. A pen pal relationship is usually based around cultural exchange and developing a friendship. Other types of reasons that people may penpal include, the exchange of language, postcards, parcels and mail art. ↩