The Daily Stoic - You Could Leave Life Today. What Would You Do Differently?

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

The end of the year has a way of reminding us that nothing lasts forever. In today’s episode, you will hear a deep dive into the Stoic practice of Memento Mori, the reminder that you could leave life at any moment. Not as something dark or depressing, but as a way to sharpen your focus on what actually matters.You will hear conversations with psychologists, grief experts, and artists who have all confronted mortality in very real ways. From near death moments and personal loss to ancient Stoic wisdom that still holds up today, this reminder helps make you more present, more patient, and more intentional with your time.🎙️ Listen to the full episodes:Think About Death. Science Says You’ll Be Happier. | Dr. Laurie SantosDavid Kessler on Finding Meaning in Grief and Practicing the Art of Memento MoriEGO, DEATH, FAME: Lamb Of God's Randy Blythe📚 Books Mentioned: Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James RommFinding Meaning and the Finding Meaning Workbook by David Kessler Just Beyond The Light by Randy Blythe Dark Days by Randy Blythe🪙 We have a collection of items in the Daily Stoic store to help you in your own memento mori practice, check them out here: https://store.dailystoic.com/👉 Dr. Laurie Santos is an expert on the science of happiness and the ways in which our minds lie to us about what makes us happy.  Listen to Dr. Laurie’s podcast, The Happiness Lab, where she shares the latest scientific research on what it means to be truly happy. Check out more of Dr. Laurie’s work at DrLaurieSantos.com and follow her Instagram @LaurieSantosOfficial, X @LaurieSantos, and on YouTube and TikTok @DrLaurieSantos👉 David Kessler, a grief and loss expert. David co-authored two books with Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, including On Grief and Grieving and after experiencing the death of his son, he updated her 5 stages of grief with a 6th stage: meaning. Follow David Kessler on Instagram and X | @IAmDavidKessler 👉 Randy Blythe is the lead singer of Lamb of God.Follow Randy on Instagram and X @DRandallBlythe and check out his SubstackNo more waiting. Demand the best for yourself. The Daily Stoic New Year New You challenge begins January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge🎁 This holiday season, give the gift of Daily Stoic Premium |  https://dailystoic.supercast.com/gifts/new 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, it's Ryan. I try not to make too many puns on my last name because I've been hearing it my whole life. But if you want to give a holiday gift of me, Ryan Holiday, and the Daily Stoic, well, you can. We have a special offer. If you want to give Daily Stoic premium as a gift, you can do that. Your friends, your family members, coworkers, whoever you give it to can get ad-free episodes, early access, and exclusive bonus content. Plus, we'll even throw in premium episodes of the Daily Dad Podcast. You can get both premium plans together for 25% off. It's a limited offer available now through the end of the holidays. That's through December 31st.

You can click below to get it for them today. Happy holidays. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live. live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers.

We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You know, it's this time of year. We're with family. We're reflecting. We're thinking about what we're grateful for. Join the weather. Maybe we're off work a little bit. And it's the perfect time, right? This cheerful, wonderful time of year to meditate on the fact that we're all going to die. We are all going to die.

And this was a year where I had to face that up close and personal, not just I lost a dear friend in co-traveling, but when I was on a run in Greece, well, I very nearly died. Here, I'll give it to you in real time. This is what happened. I almost died two days ago, where I very easily could have died, but just got stung. inside the mouth by a bee. So this is it for me. I love it. Jesus Christ. At the very least, I had to think about my mortality in a very real, intangible way. We're freaking out. And it's an absurd story. I'm in Athens, Greece, with my family. I get up early. I go for a run. I am loving life. I am feeling great. Things are going awesome.

I'm watching the sun come up. I'm looking out at the Aegean. I'm maybe four and a half miles into what was supposed to be a six-mile run and then some disgusting bug flies in my mouth but it's not just any bug it's a bee and it stings me in the back of the throat i'm not super allergic to bees but i have i had allergic reactions to them in the past and i just read a news story a few days ago about a famous polo player in the UK dropping dead of anaphylactic shock after being stung in the mouth by a bee. And one of the most important people in my life, my mentor the great Robert Green, had a stroke after being stung in the neck by a bee. So it was this surreal experience. Three days before, I'd just run from marathon to Athens. I'd spent weeks

training for this thing. I've been running. I've been outside. I was worried about getting hit by a car. I was worried about getting lost. I was worried, you know, maybe you end up in a bad neighborhood. I was worried, do you overexert yourself or get sunstroke? I was worried about everything but this thing. I didn't end up in an ambulance, but we had to contemplate calling one. No priest gave me my last rights, but I did have to seriously think about what the worst case scenario here is. Where is this going to go? And the answer was my throat could constrict, cut off breathing. I could go into anaphylactic shock. As I'm sitting there waiting for people to get back to us, for the hotel to bring ice, waiting to hear back from the doctor, I thought, of course,

of philosophy. Because this is what philosophy is. The point of philosophy, Cicero said, was to learn how to die for moments like this, to contemplate not just why we're here, but to face the very real and terrifying fact that at some point we go. And we don't control how, or when, or why. That's what the practice of Memento Mori is. And for many years, I've carried this Memento Mori coin with me, You could leave life right now, it says on the back from Marcus Reelis. Let that determine what you do and say and think. So anyways, I didn't die, thankfully, or I wouldn't be here recording. But it's a reminder, right?

Life is fragile. We can go at any moment. This is a theme the Stoics talk about over and over and over again, so much so that actually there's a translation of Seneca by James Rom, Professor James Rom at Bard, who we've had on the podcast, whose biography of Seneca I also love. but the translation collection compilation of Seneca just called How to Die. That's how much Seneca talks about. And in fact, Tacitus would say that Seneca is preparing his whole life, preparing rehearsing

for the moment that Nero's goons finally come for him. And I do have to say, it flashed through my mind as that bee stung me in the back of the throat, that this would be both an anticlimactic and an absurd and an almost perfect way to go. I could almost imagine myself on the Wikipedia page for unusual deaths for Stoic Philosophy. Also, you know, just like Chrysippus dies of laughter, Ryan Holiday, modern popularizer writer of books about Stoic philosophy dies by beasting to the throat. But I will say what flashed through my mind there when I got back to my hotel and I found my wife just sitting on her phone, not responding to my text, because she just woke up

and she didn't want to deal with my shit just yet. I was like, oh, you know, if I do have 20, 30 minutes left, whatever, let's get in the pool with my son who'd been asking him to do that all morning. So it just puts everything in perspective. And I'm actually serious. This is the time of year. We should be getting that perspective. So in today's episode, we are going to meditate on our mortality,

which, by the way, if you've read the Daily Stoic book, the whole month of December is Lamento Mori. themed. So in today's episode, we are diving in to Memento Mori, which is a theme we've talked about on the podcast all year and for many years. And first up, we're going to hear from Dr. Lori Santos. Dr. Santos is an expert on the science of happiness and the ways in which our minds lie to us about what makes us happy. Her class at Yale, Psychology in the Good Life is one of the most popular courses in Yale's history, which is, by the way, a 300-year history. Almost one out of every four students at the school has enrolled in it. And the class is about how the science of

psychology can provide important hints on how to make wiser choices and live a happier life, which, by the way, so can stoic philosophy. And I actually learned about Dr. Lori Santos because someone told me that she was on a podcast talking about her memento Mori Ring. And here is my nine-year-old Clark Holiday, who is burst into the room as I'm recording this podcast intro. What's up, buddy? What do you need my phone? What? Did mom say you could have it? No. Okay.

Wait, wait, wait, Clarkie, shut the door, though, on your way out. Don't get into too much trouble. Well, that's just an insight into my life. So, back to what I was saying, I learned about Dr. Santos because she was on Huberman, maybe, talking about her memento Mori ring. So here is Dr. Louis Santos and I talking about that. I thought you might have your Memento Mori ring on. I took it off to travel because I'm scared I'm going to lose it. it. So, which is dumb. I also have another second arrow. So it's an arrow. So that's my Buddhist one. Mymento Mori one and a Buddhist one. Well, tell me the story on both. Yeah. Memento Mori, remember you will die. Why is that something you want to wear on your person? Because it's nice to remember that you're going to die. Right. I mean, no, seriously. I mean, I think it, like, causes you to live better. And there's research showing this too, right? That fast forwarding to your death, this idea of death awareness, noticing that things might go away soon, you wind up, like, enjoying things more. Whether it's like a local thing, like, they do this with, like, college.

seniors who are about to graduate and just notice, hey, you're going to graduate really soon. They spend their time differently when you remind them. Really? But I think for bigger things for life, too, this is like, I mean, this is what the Stoics were on top of, like, before anybody did these social science studies about this stuff. Isn't it interesting how much social science studies confirm just hypotheses or arguments from ancient philosophy that they were just making up 2,000 years ago or 2,500 years ago? And even still, like, I have a colleague, Hedy Cobra, who studies meditation and a lot of kind

of, you know, ancient practice from Buddhists. And I was like, you need to go do Stoicism. So she's doing a negative visualization studies now to try to see if that also can like, she just studies like craving and these kinds of things, can it reduce craving, can it make it feel better and so on. But I'm like still new insights from them are coming in. So do you just kind of fiddle with the ring and there's something you run through in your mind? Actually, another reason I don't take it to podcast is I would thwack it.

You know, I have to take it out of it. Yeah. Yeah, you notice it every once in a while and then you, this is another one I got, this came from Arthur Brooks, so I know you had on your show. I think he was wearing a very similar... Yeah, so his work with the Dalai Lama, he hangs out with these monks who... Did you go on that trip? I did not.

I had a wedding, and I was like, can you move the wedding? No, no. But I met one of the monks who was there, and because of the work, they gave me this. And so it's, you know, blessed by a Dalai Lama, and it's meant to remind you that you're on the path to being a body safa. And it is true that I'll be like, like, literally today, driving over here trying to get out of the main part of Austin City. And I looked at it. It was about to road rage. And I was like, no, I want a path to being a body satfa control of this.

And so, yeah, so the reminders help, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if people agree. People find momentum worry morbid. People find it disconcerting, depressing. There's a reason that people don't do it, if they don't want to think about it. Oh, it's disturbing. I mean, I think it's partly the disturbingness that makes it so powerful. Yes.

Right? It, like, makes me a little want to, like, vomit in my mouth every time I think about it. But it also makes me want to put my phone away and notice the things around me and have a conversation with someone. So, yeah, I think it's. It works because it's really discombobulating. And you can get desensitized to it itself a little bit. And what I think is interesting, which has never been desensitized for me, is the one that

Marks really talks about in meditations, which he's cribbing from Epictetus. He says, as you tuck your child in at night, say to yourself, they will not make it till the morning. Yes. So there's something about Momentumory for yourself. You just be like, yeah, of course, I'm going to die. I always knew this, hopefully. But it's when if you have to meditate on losing someone or something is so precious

to you. you never become desensitized of that. It is always a very powerful, sobering, humbling, and a little bit terrifying thought to run through your mind. And there's something about the human mind that doesn't want to consider it precisely because of all those things. Yes, yes, yes.

But what's amazing about the human mind is that you can just instantly switch your reference point with a little bit of imagination, right? And I think this was one of the stoic insights. Like, if you actually have a bad thing happened to you, that changes your reference point. Like, I actually lose my phone while on this trip, oh my god, there's such a pain in the butt.

I never realized how much I appreciated my phone, but I get a new phone, it's like, oh, a phone, it's so useful, I can look at the map and so on. But what's amazing is we don't actually have to go through the actual terrible thing. We can just simulate it very briefly. And this is, I think Marcus Aurelius' insight, right? Like every morning you should wake up and think,

I might get shunned, I might lose my job, I might lose my legs won't work and stuff. And I think that that's amazing that we have the power to do that, that we don't actually have to face the real consequences, but we can psychologically reset our reference point. It's such a good hack. Well, what's interesting is we use our imagination in a way that's not helpful all the time.

Totally. So we imagine a bunch of extremely unlikely, you know, fake things. We're ruminating on stuff that nobody's thinking about and we're torturing ourselves with our imagination. Instead of using our imagination to prepare for things. Like oftentimes, if you act like the, if you just kind of have this vague imagining of a terrible thing, you feel unpleasant. But if you can get specifically what would I do, here's what my plan, actually it has the

exact opposite effect. So you sort of decide how you're going to use your imagination. And this is a critique that I sometimes get for my students. So I talk about these negative visualization psychology studies in my happiness class. And I'll always get a student who stays after class and it's like, but wait, isn't rumination terrible? Isn't that like the worst symptom of, you know, depressive episodes? And I'm like, Marcus Aurelius didn't say, like, do that 14 hours a day.

He said like, first 10 minutes right before the world. You know, like do that quickly and then recognize that that's not true, appreciate, and move on. And I think that's where we get stuck, right, is that we have to know the dosage of some of these practices, and that can get a little tricky, including memento mori, right? A terrible health, anxious, paranoia that you're going to die is not awesome. Right. Hypochondria is not the supposed to be the result. Correct.

I think the stoics were good about giving us that sort of dosage. But in practice, that's where the rubber meets. Well, Sophrasina is like the right. out. Yes. Right? Like, no, the ability to discern, which is also, it's interesting that the line between like, where is sort of temperance, where is wisdom? But they're the same, they're related. It's like, what is the golden mean of this exercise, this truth, this idea? Because when you hear Seneca, on the one hand, say, you know, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. And then he also says, he who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary. He says, like,

the unexpected blowlands heaviest. And then he's also saying, like, don't torture herself with every possible thing that could happen. People feel like that's a contradiction. And I think oftentimes that is a critique of the Stoics that they contradict each other. What they're actually saying is not too much over here and not too little over here, get the right amount, even on something like, hey, am I prepared for things to not go my way, is very different than ruminating on how they're never going to go your way. Exactly. Exactly. And I think, you know, if you, this is, I love the Stoics, but I also like bringing in these other kinds of traditions, too, right? Like, if you look to Aristotle, this was something that Aristotle was really worried about, the kind of right amount.

Like, virtue isn't one thing or the other. It's not kind of bravery or cowardice. It's this lovely sweet spot in the middle. And so, yeah, so I think that the right amount is something that we should be thinking about a lot. Well, that's the problem with the word temperance is that temperance in America, not even in English, but the temperance movement became the abstinence movement. Smash your bottles of fry. Exactly. I mean, none, not what is the right amount. What is a moderate, safe, reasonable amount. And that's a hard. And look, there's some things not at all. Some things you should definitely not do. There's probably not a moderate amount of heroin that you should be doing. Or a fentanyl or something. But there are other things that if you can do them in moderation, it's totally fine. And I think ruminating is probably one of those things because there's a fine line between ruminating and being. ignorant. Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things I think the Stoics would say is that, you know, the main principle of, like, finding agency over your own mind, finding agency over your own emotions, finding agency of your own actions. Like, they almost want you to be probably in that hard sweet spot of sorting it out for yourself, right? That's a kind of virtue that the Stoics want you to cultivate. Yeah. You want to be prepared for things to go wrong, but also not a cynical, miserable, you know, because I don't believe in manifestation, but I do believe, like,

If you have a fundamentally negative worldview, the world will be negative to you. I don't think you're changing reality, but if you only look for the worst, you're going to find a lot of bad stuff. Okay, but this is a spot where my students also get it confused. And I think it is really confusing psychologically, right? Because on the one hand, we know thinking about the worst helps you a little bit in all the ways we were just talking about. We also know that optimism helps you a little bit. But it also has these interesting downsides, right? In the manifesting work, there's lots of work by folks like Gabriel Oettingen that,

If you fantasize about a positive future a lot, you take less action towards that positive future. Yes. So these studies where like, you know, you fantasize about getting fit and going to the gym all the time. You think, oh, my gosh, it's going to be so great. I'm going to fit in my clothes and look great, whatever. But then the more you fantasize about it, the less you actually go to the gym.

Yeah. And this, too, comes from a weird feature of imagination, which is that if we've imagined a goal, we don't want that goal as much anymore. There's this lovely study by this guy, Carrie Morwedge, who has people either imagine putting quarters into a vending machine over and over again really slowly or slowly eating M&Ms one by one. And then at the end of the study, people come out and there's a big Vat of M&Ms. Yeah.

What does he find? He finds the people that imagine the quarters eat less M&Ms because they kind of feel like if you imagined eating all the M&Ms, you're kind of satisfied by them. You don't need them anymore, right? Right. And this is what happens with certain kinds of positive fantasies. We imagine that we already went to the gym and got all the benefits. It's like, well, I don't need to put action into that.

Yeah, I think for me, the momentum. the more thing is it's not that you are going to die tomorrow, but that you could. Yes. And the couldness puts a level of uncertainty, and then it forces you to make some decisions. I think that's kind of how I think about it. That's right. And I think those decisions ultimately are ones that make us a lot happier, right? The decisions are usually to be a little bit more present, to not fall for the, like, you know, low value, you know, dopamine hit in the current parlance, even though it's not really dopamine hit.

but like, like, just the kind of low value quick, like I'm looking at my phone rather than hang out when I kid right before he goes to bed, right? And those changes matter a lot. Those changes matter a lot for our moment to moment happiness, but I think those changes matter a lot for really appreciating the stuff we have in life, which again, you know, is the stoics so lovingly pointed out, like is not guaranteed at any point. Yeah, the like, hey, should we extend the vacation one day? Or, hey, should I blow off work and go spend an extra bit of time for this first?

Should I take this phone call? It's the, it could be the last time that you get that. thing. And so you should probably seize it while it's here. That is, I think, just a real practical way of momentum where it helps you make better day-to-day decisions. It also changes our time horizon, right? Like, psychologists often worry about these cases of my opia, right? Where you're not saving enough. You're not eating healthy enough. You're not protecting your future self. I, from a happiness standpoint, worry a lot about the opposite, which is hyperopia, which is like we're constantly saying, I'm doing something for my future self, right? But we both

get our future self wrong and sometimes like the future isn't guaranteed. So, you know, take the reward, take that fun thing now. You know, you know, how many times like do people not end up spending their frequent flyer miles and they expire or, you know, buy this nice bottle of wine that you and your partner are going to have one day and then you finally find it. And it's like corked or something. Right. Right. I feel like we're constantly in danger of corking our lives. Yes. Even in these local domains. I mean, I've heard you use the example of your, you know, kids going to bed and that, you know, stoic mantra helping you notice and be present. What would you'd be doing if you weren't being present? Well, you'd probably be checking an email for, like, Future

You is trying to get something not important at all. Exactly. Yes. And so fighting our hyperopia and making sure, you know, we're prioritizing things in the present so that we get the right future benefit, I think is important. I've never met someone who's not saving for retirement, not taking care of themselves because they have philosophically worked themselves into that position. Yes. They're not doing that because they're just not responsible. It's not a philosophical point of view. I do think this is a trouble with some philosophy and some people people like they they try to like overthink it and for these edge cases that aren't real or would affect such a minority of the it's like it's like people don't want to work out because they don't want

to be too fit yeah yeah yeah you're you're not going to get there don't worry about it you know and it's like you know if everyone actually put in this ancient philosophical practice social security would go bankrupt and it's like no okay first off it's automatically taken out of everyone's account there it's not a choice that's why but like no the people that are not doing it are doing it for other irresponsible reasons not for an extreme philosophical principle yeah and i do feel like hyperopia is one of the you know people who are a little philosophically informed are thinking about how to live a good life they're often the ones that are pretty good at like discounting right like you know withholding but then if

you do that too much you know again none of us know what our moment is and the mimtole more is just a reminder of like could be tonight what i want to do different if it was well how many of these these people that are obsessed with sort of radical life extension have a life worth extending. Seneca talks about this story about this emperor, this criminal sort of begging to be spared. Like, don't put me to death. And he says, oh, you're really alive. That's what the emperor says to him. He's like, you have wasted your life.

You're a shitty person doing shitty things. And now you're begging to be spared to do what? So you can go back to your life of crime. This is not a statement on the justice of the death penalty. The point is, when I look at the life that the. these people are trying to extend, I'm like, what? You're living like a monk, but not in a philosophical way. Yes, and like getting random injections and you can't hang out with people because

when you hang out with people, you're going to have a drink or go out and have some food. You're going to eat real food. You don't go in the sun because you're worried about the stuff. Like what you're doing is stripping all the reasons for existence out of existence to then prolong the existence. So maybe in the future you'll someday be happy. You could be happy now. And I think they're getting the evidence wrong.

I think a lot of the evidence for that form of longevity comes from like, I don't know, supplement research, like what, but if you look psychologically at the kinds of things that extend longevity, it is happiness in the moment, you're social connections, right? The good that you're doing in the world, the sense of purpose and value, right? These are the things that extend life when you're faced with terminal illnesses and so on. And so it's like, I think they're doing it for the wrong reasons. They're going to get a long life that's not very valuable. But I also think they're missing out. If really what your goal was longevity, you might actually just want a happy life in the moment because that would work for you. Have you ever talked to someone who's really old,

like 90 to 100 or whatever? Yeah. I've talked to many of them, and first off, they don't talk about being old. They don't talk about wanting to live longer, and they're not even particularly pumped that they're still alive, to be perfectly honest. I don't mean like their life is depressing, but one of the striking things about someone, you meet anyone over 100, they are not clinging to life. Yes. They are not like, I hope I make it to 112.

I need two more years to get this stuff done. What they actually are is day to day. And like I need this guy, Richard Overton and Austin, he was 112. and I asked him if he takes it day by day and he said, at my age, you take it day by night. He's like, look, I just, if I live through the evening, if I wake up tomorrow, that's like defying the odds once again. In fact, it can sometimes be painful. If you love these people, they're like, I'm ready to go. And you're like, don't say that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're not ready for them to go. Yes. But they have gotten to a place where life is no longer so precious to them. And that's probably part of it. But it's just interesting to me that when you talk to the people who have, it's like, I'm, I guess this is also true for wealth. When you talk to the people who have it, they're like, it's not that great.

I'd trade it for X, Y, or Z. And then the people that are obsessed with life expectancy are often neglecting the present moment at the expense of some optimized future. Yes, yes. And ultimately, like, when you get there, you might be happier than you think, no matter what you optimized, right? I think this is another stunning thing is that as people get older, but specifically as people get closer to death, they wind up.

being more positive rather than less. And one of the cute studies that looked at this, I mean, just talking about a structural issue that we should talk about and fight about, but it looked at people on death row, right? Where for older individuals, probably they're getting closer to that last moment, but we don't know when it's going to be. Unfortunately, with individuals on death row, we can measure it. And so researchers look at people's journals, their expressions and things as they get closer. And rather than getting more negative, they actually get substantially more positive.

Because the anger, the frustration, the fear, it just dissipates because what's... Yeah, you're working at, right? I think we don't actually know why it is, but it seems like psychologically what happens is you wind up kind of happier. And if you look at kind of death row notes, because often people will write, you know, know about their situation, whatever, like way more strongly, like two to one strongly positive words and other oriented words, like kindness and their connection and the meaning they've gotten and so on. Like, it's not like me. It turns down the noise on the trivial shit. They're not like, this guy stole this thing from my bunk, you know, like just the things you're holding on. on to when there's an eternity.

There's a story Lincoln tells this guy in his town who hated this other guy. They hated each other. And he finds out he has some terminal illness. And so he reaches out and he says, I want to make amends. And so the guy comes in, he sees them, and they make amends. And as the former enemy is leaving, he says, hey, I just want you to know if I survive this, the grudge is back on. And there's something about the silliness of what we

cling to that the ephemerality of life renders insignificant. And I imagine whether you're sitting on death row, you just found out you have cancer, or you're 95, you're just like, man. Human. Your body has a performance superhighway. 60,000 miles of blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to every cell. This, of course, is your cardiovascular. system. It's the foundational system that powers everything we do. Both elite athletes and

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All right. So in the fall of 2024, I actually don't remember when the episode came out, but I think this is, this feels like a 2025 thing. We had a grief expert on the podcast. His name is David Kessler. And it was an incredibly moving, powerful conversation, especially, you know, my kids just burst into the room as I was recording. Well, David's personal experience with grief started very young. As a child, he witnessed a mass shooting while his mother was dying in the hospital. And then he lost his 21-year-old son. very suddenly many years later. And so his job, what he does is he teaches physicians and nurses and counselors and police about end-of-life trauma and grief. He's a beautiful writer. He actually wrote two books with Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, if you know about the stages of grieving. So he's an expert with a lot of hands-on personal experience with that. And he has actually added a sixth stage of grief, which he calls meaning. So here is my conversation with David Kessler. So people read Marx Reelis' Meditations, and sometimes the knock on Marks Realis is that it's depressing.

And lately just been saying, you're right. Do you know what Mark Serilis' life was? He lost his father at a young age. He gets taken from his childhood home and he becomes the emperor. And he buries six children. Five children live to adulthood. Six die. So if 11 children, more than half of them die.

Right. He lives through a plague. He lives through a flood. He loses his wife. How does this guy get out of bed every morning? I mean, like, it's depressing because life can be depressing. But also when you realize that he did get out of bed every morning, that he did keep going, it's this testament, profound testament to the resilience and the perseverance of the human spirit. And so that's what human beings do is that they must. move through grief and loss and keep going. And one of the things I put in this is that I put the hero's journey in there. And, you know, I want people to understand we all go through those horrible dark nights. And how mapped out it is that like in the beginning of the journey, you're sure there's no end. Well, the refusal to the call. The refusal of the call is the denial. Right, right, exactly.

And you go into that and there's, you know, the enemies and the hell. I mean, it's all, and one of the things I did, because, I mean, so many people don't know the hero's journey is I literally go, all right, you've seen it in Star Wars and the Hunger Games. Every great story ever. I did, like, here's the hero's journey, here's Star Wars hero's journey, because you can go, oh, yeah, Luke's parents died, and all that, and then you can go to, let's map out yours. Right. And here's the hero's journey.

at the end of it, my son is still dead. And I'm forever changed. I'm still me. And each of us is the hero of our own life, of what we've gone through. And you just don't often get that until you're dark night. And everyone else has been going through theirs too. Yeah.

There is something, though, about being a parent. that I think makes you uniquely vulnerable. Joan Didion, you know, this is her table. Is it? And these are her chairs. Wow. Like she sat at this table with the fan. There's a New York Times picture of that family, the one that was in the course of 18

months taken from her sitting at this table in these chairs. And she said something about how being a parent is like being a hostage to fortune. Just like life has something on you now. And I think that's what keeps you up at night. as a parent. It's like that something could happen and you don't have control of it. I remember when I became a parent. I had this nightmare. I forgot what it was. And someone said to me, oh, you only have two nightmares as a parent. You die or they die. And I'm like, really? And it's like, well, that does become it. And listen, I love, you know, Joan Didion, I love when I often have

people watch the documentary on her. And it begins with like, you know, She's a robust, elderly, giggling lady that you're like, oh, what a fabulous life she's had and this person, that person. And then you hear about it and you go, wait a minute, she's been through that. Wait, that happened? How is she still standing? How does it not break this frail, tiny person? Yeah, it's unreal.

It's interesting the history in things. I wrote part of the original book on Truman Capote's table. And I'm like, is anything coming through? but I'm like, I don't want it to be, you know, gossipy or tacky. Like, you know, and, you know, it turns out it was just a table. How did you find his table? I have a friend who was great friends with Joanne Carson, who was a good friend of his and had his desk. Yeah, there's an energy to things, I think.

There's an energy, and yet there's also the stories. Yeah. Like, what's going to happen if I write at this table? Yeah. It's nothing. It's just a table. To the table. Yeah. Her story is so, it's sobering. You know, she opens, she has this book, Blue Nights, and she opened, she's like at her daughter's wedding. And she and her husband are walking out. Right. And she says, you know, neither of us, no one could have understood watching this scene from the street that within 18 months, everyone but the mother of the pride would be dead. And just how life can come at you very, very. very fast. It doesn't matter how successful you are, talented you are, how protected you are. That's to me with that Longfellow. He says, you know, it doesn't matter how well protected your your fireside is. There's an empty chair at everyone's living room. None of us are exempt from it.

And we so get that when we're in it. To me, one of the practices, can I get it when I'm not in it? when I'm in the grocery store, and that person is struggling to find, like, the change in their wallet or purse, you know, and you're like, you knew we were at the checkout here. How did this surprise you? Yeah, this is not difficult. And yet, oh my gosh, did their spouse die a week ago? Yeah. Are they, like, dealing with a new diagnosis? I mean, you really have no clue what anyone around. us is going through in their struggles. Yeah. And to have that new awareness suddenly goes, can I give you a quarter?

Yeah, you know? Right. Or just leave them alone. Be patient and like send them love and wish them well. Right. You know? Yeah, there's a practice in meditations that I try to do. Mark's really says he gets it from Epictetus, but he says, as you tuck your child,

then at night, say to yourself, they will not make it through till the morning. and I think he's doing what you're saying, which is not, he's not trying to say, like, detach from this person. I think he's saying, why are you rushing through bedtime? You know what I mean? Like when my kid wants to get out to go. That's the hard thing to do. I mean, I say it a little differently that for me, you know, because there's that thing about

your life must be so depressing. And I think about, all right, let me just go there. What if it turns out, today's my last day? Yeah. I don't know it. There's a car accident later. There's a plane crash. I don't know it. It's my last day. So if I take this in and go, wait, what if it's my last day? I only have two choices. I need to excuse myself right now because I have to go apologize to a lot of people. I got to go make some amends. Or if I've been living currently, what? So if this is my last day, wait a minute, this is my last podcast. Well, if this is my last podcast, I mean, let's make this really good. I mean, I want to take in today. I want to like, grab a little more from today than I normally would. And so what if I really try to make this day count even more and then I don't die tonight? Great. I have a whole other day and tomorrow

it's going to be another great day. Well, that's what I think about. So it's, you know, your child's not going to make it through till morning. And then when you're laying there and then they're like, I need water and you're like, you don't need water. You're just making this up. Because you're trying to extend bedtime. You're like, oh, yeah, I want to extend bedtime also. What do I care? Why am I trying to, what am I going to do? What am I going to do that's better than this?

If your child is like, these are precious moments, let me like take it in. Yeah. And we're like, there's a destination, sleep. Yeah. I'm like, I have an email to respond to or whatever. It's, what am I going to do? I'm going to go watch that one. You know, what I'm trying to do.

do after this is laughably unimportant compared to this. But you can fool yourself of that if you allow your mind to do what we naturally, what's a much more comfortable thought, which is you have thousands more of this. So this one's not that important. But you don't know that. And you don't know that. And you don't know that. And if you let that in, it actually doesn't depress you. It makes you live more. It makes you, I mean, one of the things that was a crazy thing that I experienced and I think sort of says it all is I would do before the pandemic, you know, 30 cities and all that and be in like hotel meeting room after one.

And I would be in a hotel meeting room and there'd be a few hundred people and next door's the realtors and down the halls, the nurses around the corner is the, you know, rotary club. And the staff would say on more than one occasion at the end of the day, or are you teaching? Yeah. And I go, why do you ask? And they go, because your group was laughing the most. And they'd be like, I'd say grief. What kind of grief?

And I would go that kind of grief. And what I think it's hard for the outsider to know is the people in that room who had been through all kinds of tragedies or helped people with tragedies absolutely had a, longer, wider bandwidth for sorrow. Yeah. But they also had a longer, wider bandwidth for laughter, for joy. You have to be able to laugh. In the ancient world, there was sort of two models.

There was Democretus and Heraclitus. And the idea was Democritus cried over the absurdity and the tragedy of existence. And Heraclitus laughed at it. And which one are you going to be? Right. In Seneca, some of Seneca's last words, so you get the emperor, he runs a foul of Nero and Nero sends this hit squad to kill him

and his friends are there and his wife is there and they're all crying, you know, he's going to die and he chokes, why are you crying over this? He says, when the whole of life requires tears. He's like, why is this so sad life is that? But he's making fun of the absurdity of it and there is something I think about, about humor and laughter

that only people who have experienced profound sadness and darkness truly understand. So many times people go, wow, you really have a gift for, you know, death and grief. And I go, I really have a gift for humor. Because the truth is, I mean, I don't think you could learn that much if I'm like, oh, let's keep you in the pain. I mean, humor is so important.

And I'm not ever laughing at anyone's grief or their sorrows. But isn't life ridiculous? I mean, it becomes really funny, the absurd things that happen. Yeah, Lincoln had this profound sadness and then also this sort of body sense of humor. And I think you need the two to balance each other out. How do you think losing a child, what do you think that brings you to say to a parent? Like, how would that inform one's time with their children? It's hard because I don't want to take away.

anyone's human experience. And I'm so glad I got to have and still have with my older son all those human experiences. And I think about it like on one hand, I've done a lot of work with a cancer organization near me. And I remember, you know, one woman saying after she got into remission when she was about to die, she said, you know, I get up every morning and I just taken the sunrise. I went, it's amazing. I mean, I'm just ignoring it every single day. And then I remember seeing her like a year later and I go, how you doing? And she's like, I'm doing great. My health's great. And I said, how are the sunrises? She goes, ah, you've seen one, you've seen them all. And I mean, I think we try to operate from the profoundness of all this, but we're just having this human

experience. There's still a day-to-dayness also. There's a day-to-dayness. And, you know, there's times someone will go, you know, my child didn't get into the college, da, da, da, da, and I'm like, hearing him, I'm like, that's not a problem. Yeah, it's not a problem. I mean, but, and sometimes I say it. And sometimes I realize, well, that is their biggest problem. Yeah. You know, and maybe they're open to a different perspective and maybe they're not. Well, it's like we all know what we're supposed to eat, and then we get hungry or tired, and then we eat something different. So, yeah, you're right. You have these profound insights, and then you're still a human being who, you know, is prey to all the things that human beings do. And I remember in that same cancer organization, someone shared with me, we were talking about, what if you found out?

Like, you know, it was your last week, your last day. And one person said, oh, I'd put another load of laundry in. And I love the humanness of that. Like, okay, I guess I'm just going to do the next thing that's in front of me, even if this turns out to be my last day. You know who Montaigne is, the French essayist? He says, I hope death finds me planting cabbages. Wow.

Just he understood what Cicero said, that to philosophize it's to learn how to die. But the idea was that you get this awareness, you get this understanding, you have these insights, and then you just go about your regular life. He's like, I don't, you know, not dreading it, but also not like, like, like sort of overwrought and over prepared for it. You learn all the stuff. And then in a sense, if you understand you could lose your kids at any moment, there's some unhealthy version where you just cling them so tight to you because you're afraid of always losing them that you end up losing them. It's this idea of understanding it and then taking them to soccer practice and

sending them off to school and just living a regular life with them. Well, and I think a huge lesson is for me, fear doesn't stop death. Fear stops life. So you get in too much fear. And it's everything. It's, I mean, you could lose your kids. You could lose your spouse. I mean, we could, that's like true to your job. I mean, everything. And so do we tighten up? Do we go into fear? Do we shut down? Or do we go, oh, my goodness, that's right. I was going to lose everything anyway. I guess I'm just going to like relax into this while it's here and enjoy it. Yeah, there's a balance to that, I think. And to go between, you know, that humanness and the reality of loss, that it's always around us. I always say death is like no further than six inches. I mean, something's around us that just could electrocute. I mean, something could happen in any given moment.

Yeah. And, okay, I'm just going to, well, live. And just like, I don't want this long, long wind down of my life. I mean, I'd like to be caught in the act. I'm just like laying life, planting a cabbage, and boom, who knew? Like, would you have planted a cabbage? Yeah, probably would have. I wouldn't have done another load of laundry.

Yeah. That's beautiful. You want to check out some books? Sure. All right, and then I got something for you. Not that you need any more reminders, but we'd do these for Daily Stoke. I thought you might like that. Wow.

It's a challenge coin, but it's, so the hourglass is time, the skull is death, and then the flower is life. That's the idea of Memento Mori, which the Stoics said we should be saying to ourselves constantly. And Seneca's point, too, which I think is beautiful, he says, don't think of death as this thing that happens in the future, but as something that's happening right now. So not even in what you were saying that it could happen right now, but that it is because instead of seeing death as a singular final thing, we want to see the time that passes as being dead. And so, in fact, you're dying all the time. Every day. Yes.

Every day. And, you know, we have this moment. Oh, nope. It's gone. Yeah. It's gone. It's dead. There's a new one.

And can we take that in? And it's so true. Every day is going to die. Yeah. I mean, I'm never going to be this age again. I mean, sometimes I'll literally, when I'm trying, you know, there's so much in meditation, I come to the present moment. I mean, sometimes I'll do like a time travel pretending like, what if I was like in the future

and I came back to this day? Sure. I'd be like, wow, take in the room a little more. And wow, like you're sitting with Ryan and like, you know, in the books on the wall, I'd be like, wasn't this day amazing? You know, how many of us go if I could go back and look at that day again? well, take another look at this day here. This is an amazing day.

And maybe not. It could be the day that sucks in your life. And can you also look at that as part of this experience? And also to realize, yeah, there's nothing that keeps a parent up more than the idea of losing their children. But like, I've already lost my babies. I lost my toddler. You know, they're gone. I'll never get that one again because now they're older.

Grief is empty nest. Yeah. When they go to college. you're going to lose them again. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, our spouses and our girlfriends and everyone else, and it's okay, and it's all going to happen someday. But we have this and we have now in this moment, and that's what's amazing about it.

For the last episode, we're going to go a very different direction. I'm going to go in the heavy metal direction. I'm friends with Randy Blythe, the lead singer of the metal band Lamb of God. Also has two amazing books. I actually just saw him on book tour here in Austin, and he gave like a riveting, like two-hour conversation about, you know, his experiences, which, by the way, include being wrongly jailed in a Czech prison. So fascinating life, fascinating guy.

I think you're going to really like this. And as I said, he has two wonderful books, just beyond the light and dark days. And so we talked quite a bit about Memento Mori, because they have a famous song about that, which if my son hadn't stolen my phone, I would be telling you how many streams it has on Spotify, because I think it's one of their most streamed, and it's a very great song. Anyways, you can check out the show notes for full episode links if you want to listen to the whole conversation with those people. If you want a Memento Mori reminder, I have one sitting here on my desk, the Memento Mori coin we make for Daily Stoic. And you can grab one yourself at store. Dotdailystoic.com. We were talking about, you know, it's not as bad as being in a Czech prison.

But I think that the exercise of Momentumori puts all that stuff in perspective too, right? You're like, hey, this is my only day. How am I going to spend it? This is it. Yeah. You know, remember you two shall die. Yeah, you gave me this thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you seen those? I like to look at cemeteries. I like the cemetery where it shows what the person looks like. Instead of being, you know, them as an angel or whatever, it shows like a skeleton. The expression is what you are I once was. Yeah. What I am now, you will. Yeah, yes. And so they're called skeleton tombs or something. I forget, there's a Latin expression. But the idea is like instead of the grave representing this peaceful, serene. gentle thing yes they want to show the the sort of the decomposition yeah and the tragedy and the decay of it because that's in you also yeah you are on your way to becoming that very thing yeah yeah most certainly it's like uh Alexander the great and his mule driver it's one of my favorite lines in meditation yeah yeah both died and both buried in the same ground they're both fucking worm food, is what he's saying? Yeah, 100%. Have you been to the catacombs in Paris?

Not in Paris, but I've been to a bunch of different catacombs. We went last time and cut a lot, a lot of photos, and they had lots of great sayings up there on the walls in different parts. There was a church in Dublin that has a crypt underneath it, and you walk in, and they have, it's because of the temperature and the depth, it perfectly preserved these bodies that were. buried in there. And they took, you know, they slid the stone off the coffin. And you can see, they're basically these natural mummies. And I was telling my kids this because they didn't believe it's true. But that you used to be able to go in. I went 12 years ago. And they let you touch the mummy. Oh. Like its hand is there and you can rub its finger. Wow. And so you're touching what you will one day be. Wow. And the jolting feeling that you get there. And you're like,

This person died in the fucking Crusades. Wow. Is not just this guy died in the Crusades, but this guy was so abnormally tall that to fit him in this casket, they broke his legs to fold it under it. Right. One size. One size casket back in the day. You're done, man. You don't need to be comfortable in there.

Yeah, absolutely. It reminds there's another quote came from a Roman poet similar to that line for Marx to realize. He says, um, in life. the world could not contain Alexander's ambition, but in death, a coffin was sufficient. Oh, yeah. And so you could want to be the biggest musician in the world, the biggest whatever in the world. You could be fucking physically imposing and intimidating.

Yeah. And then your ashes are like a fucking coffee cup. Yeah. That's right about that in the first chapter, too. Kind of like how in considering our own deaths, you know, for some people, I believe this may be a rude shock to you. But you are no better than the piece of roadkill you pass by. You know, in death, you're no better than the person you made fun of in high school, you know, all this other stuff.

We're all going to be equally dead. Conversely, if you're suffering from an inferiority complex, you know, take comfort in the fact that you will succeed effortlessly at being as perfectly. dead as the greatest men and women of history, you know? Or the nice way to, the more inspirational way to put that is, you are as equally alive as the greatest people on the planet. Yeah, this is true. You have, you have as much life in you as the most powerful, richest person in the world. Yeah. Pleasure feels the same. The air tastes the same. It is what it is. This is all there

is. Yeah. This is it. You know, enjoy it well. it's here. I think yeah, no one is not breathes any better than anyone else. You have asthma, I guess, maybe. Well, we're talking permanent, not breathing.

No, no, right. It's the great equalizer in the end. It's the one prophecy that never fails. Yeah. And once it happens, it's done. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to happen to everyone. Yeah. Do you see that documentary on Netflix about the

dude who's trying right yeah yeah like it's it's interesting some of it like theoretically what they're trying to do but you know what i think what i think about guys like that guys that want think they want to live forever they spend all this money on this longevity shit one of the emperors one of the roman emperors is uh walking by they're they're executing some you know heinous criminal, who's wasted his life being awful. And the criminal sees him and he says, you know, like, you know, please, please spare me or whatever. And the empress says, I didn't know you were even alive. Like he's saying, so you're really alive, are you? That's what he says. Like, the point is your existence, the thing you're begging to be given a second chance at is not

that great. I think about there's something. fundamentally funny to me about that guy's life doesn't seem that amazing. He's not making an argument why his life is so great that he should live forever or he should get another 50 years because he's going to put it to such great use. What he's saying is, I'm going to make my health really good. That's his argument. His argument is my health should entitle me to more years. Not the quality of my life is worth preserving. Like there's never this much. And look, Life is life, and I feel like everyone should, is entitled. I think healthcare should be a human right.

I think anytime we can improve the longevity of the population as a whole, that is a wonderful blow to strike for justice. So that's not what I mean. But I think it's funny that the people that are most obsessed with living the longest strike me as pretty miserable people. Yes. And pretty self-absorbed people. Yes.

That I'm not so intrigued by what. what they're going to do with this extra time? Because I know the answer is basically just more self-indulgent nonsense. Yeah. I mean, even, you know, I love vampires. Yeah. Huge vampire fan. And we'll take my hand at writing a vampire novel one day.

Go for it. But the depictions of vampires, their immortality is a curse. It's never good. Yeah, no, it's a curse. Yeah. Never good. It's a curse. Yeah.

And I, God, I can't imagine. I would not want to live another 100 years. No way. Yeah. No way. Yeah, it's like he sucks his blood from his son or whatever, the guy in the documentary. Yeah. And it's like, I think it's supposed to go the other direction.

Yeah. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, he's not like, I've decided to put all this time and energy into helping my son live forever because I just love him so much. Right. I'd be devastated if anything happened to him. He's like, how can I suck the youthful energy out of my boy? it's being a parent it's supposed to make you shift your priorities and be precisely the opposite direction but yeah he donated some to his father some of his plasma but then it's kind of like

you're taking your son's life that's you that's what hopefully the presupposition that your son will one day have kids is he supposed to just continually drain them you know you're breeding uh youth fountains or whatever yeah there's a zen saying grandfather dies, father dies, son dies. This is a happy story. Because that's how it's supposed to go. And, yeah, this starts to get pretty metaphysical very quickly. But I think the whole point is that there's no point if we don't die.

It's supposed to be, that's what creates the urgency and the clarity. Yeah. And the, an infinite game means you get an infinite number of tries. Right. And that's not what life is. Yeah, fine I came. Yeah, 100%. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it,

and I'll see you next episode. Thank you.