Plum Goes Dum

You Can’t Cheat Death

In 1932, the biologist Robert Cornish was experimenting on a project that he thought would change the world forever. Cornish sought to bring the dead back to life. He developed a technique of strapping the dead into a seesaw and teeter-tottering their bodies rapidly to circulate their blood and revive them. It was difficult to obtain human bodies for an experiment of this nature, so Cornish purchased five dogs to try the technique on.

Cornish would suffocate each dog to death, then put them on the seesaw to try and bring them back to life. He was unsuccessful at reviving the first three dogs, but he reached a breakthrough when he revived the fourth and fifth dogs, who went on to live for a few months after initially being killed. Despite this massive breakthrough, Cornish’s technique was not further researched. You may be wondering why, especially considering the impact this type of research could have. Perhaps the fact that the two dogs Cornish revived were blind, brain-damaged, and “inspired terror in the ordinary dogs they met” is the reason.

Cornish was an immensely intelligent person. He graduated from high school at the young age of 15, graduated with honors from the University of California at age 18, and earned his PhD at age 22. Yet despite all his smarts, Cornish was unable to comprehend the most basic fact of life: that it is temporary. In his futile attempts to find a way to make his life longer, he wasted the precious moments of life that he did have. Imagine if he had accepted his mortality rather than search for a way to deny it. Then, perhaps, he could have spent more time playing with dogs instead of killing them.

No matter how hard we try to change it, the fact that we are mortal will never change. No amount of advanced technology will ever change this fact. On the off chance we do find a way to live forever, egg on my face. But why would anyone want to live forever anyway? Have you ever heard a 90 year old say “I hope I can live for 90 more years!”? Even if we could live for eternity with our minds and bodies in prime condition, it wouldn’t be worth it. The fact that we aren’t here for eternity is what gives life its value. If our years on this Earth were unlimited, we wouldn’t cherish them so dearly.

All this talk about death can depress certain people. It makes sense, death is sad. But just because death is sad doesn’t mean we should resist it. As the author Eckhart Tolle has said, “What could be more futile than to resist what is?” If we know we will die one day, we must accept it. And not only should we accept it, but we should remind ourselves of this fact everyday.

Accepting that we won’t live forever will make us appreciate the time we do have. It will force us to focus on what we really want in life; we don’t have time to focus on anything else. It will force us to make the most out of every moment; we don’t know which one will be our last. It will guide our thoughts and actions to create a life worth living.

While we can’t know when or how we’ll die, we can be certain that we will. So as the great philosopher king wrote 2000 years ago:

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” -Marcus Aurelius