Thursday, June 15, 2006

Mortality and the Hourglass

My next-door neighbour had suffered a tragedy. The eldest daughter, Olivia, suddenly passed away last night at a very young age.

Me being 26 at the time of writing this, passing away at an age very close to mine made me seriously think about my own mortality. I value life dearly and have recently taken personal steps to improve my physical life, to delay my mortality which comes through the process of aging.

A nice metaphor to illustrate this is the hourglass. People are hourglasses. From the moment people are born into the world, their hourglass has only just started pouring their life sand at a constant trickle.

Some people are big hourglasses, some are small. Some people's hourglasses take 90 years to finish, others take only a few minutes. But at the end of the day, the life sands of one's own hourglass will eventually run out, sometimes unexpectedly.

No matter how fit you are, or how strong you are, death is cruel. It can strike anyone, anytime, unexpectedly without warning.

No one is invincible.

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