You're going to die.

Wrap your mind around this. You. Will. Die. Maybe even today. TRP has 200,000 subscribers and that means, with statistical inevitability, someone reading this now is not going to make it to tomorrow. That person could be you, and it matters little if you're young and healthy. Brain aneurysm, texting driver, slipping on soap, botulism in your breakfast, bad weld on a weight bench. Life can turn on a dime, and it can end on a dime too. If you're lucky it will be quick, that's the best you can hope for.

But even if you don't die today, death is in your future. It is not like sleeping, there is no dreaming, no awareness. There is not even infinite and eternal black, there is nothing. If you've ever had general anesthetic you've known something like it - the memory hole, the absence of consciousness, the total erasure of a slice of time from your experience-line. The difference is, you don't wake up from death to contemplate the gap. You're done. Game over.

People avoid the subject of death. Pets are put down, family members pass on to lie at rest, soldiers go home as cargo 200, disaster victims are found with vital signs absent, then medevaced priority four. Religions usually include some form of after-life, a God-created cheat code to keep the game going once the power has been unplugged. Many simply don't think about it. This is natural. Our genetically coded purpose is to survive and reproduce. We fear anything that threatens those goals, and we are driven to everything thing that supports them.

However denying death will not prevent it, it will only prevent full appreciation for the wonderful gift that life is. Denying death will only mire you in lesser fears, make you a small man of small imagination, and thus small accomplishment. Face death, embrace death, and those lesser fears vanish. Therefore parachute, free-climb, learn to fly, rally, or dive. Wingsuit, trek solo, ocean swim. Whatever scares you most, do that thing, and do it again, and again, and again. Do it until you have pushed your limits, faced your finish, accepted your end, and moved past it. Death will become your friend, and after that you will be unstoppable. Public speaking is nothing, cold approaches are nothing, rejection, bankruptcy, homelessness, injury, illness, hurt, pain, and loss are nothing. The worst day of your life becomes a precious, fleeting gift, and without embracing death you cannot appreciate its value. The Red Pill is a two-faced coin, on one side hard truth, on the other the refusal of soothing lies. You're going to die, and the inevitable arrival of your demise is the most fundamental truth there is. A wise friend once told me "All you get is your hyphen", that short little line that goes between two dates on your tombstone. Neither date matters, what counts is the hyphen. Make it the best you can.

C