Leo Tolstoy, a well-known novelist, wrote a confession regarding the author’s encountered hardship during his mid-life existential crisis of melancholia. In the confession the author is seen pondering on two philosophical questions- “What is the meaning of my life?” and “What will come of my life?” The confession by Leo Tolstoy provides a strong question regarding how to live one’s life despite knowing that death is inevitable. Tolstoy of death as not only the finality of a human life, but also the disappearing of all his or her traces in the face of the earth. What comes of his or her achievements after death? Many people would say that one can not bring his or her material possessions to the afterlife, making them useless and meaningless in the end. The questions posted by Tolstoy resounds an unending inclination about the polarities of life.
Death makes everyone equal, no matter what your status in life is, when your time comes, you are no different from other people. Tolstoy pointed out that because death happens to everyone the accomplishments a person managed to gain while he or she was still living is nothing. Death can strike at anytime, meaning everyone is at the mercy of the circumstances and situations, no one can see death coming. Truly, death is the equalizing factor in life. I believe that death is something that provides a common ground in society, for instance, the devastation of many natural calamities that killed millions of lives did not select who it would kill. Many people lose their homes, lives and possession in an instant, proving that death is not selective. It is ironic, that even the most powerful individuals in the world will be held powerless when death comes knocking on their doors.
But if death is inevitable, how does a person live his or her life? It is difficult to assess a person’s way of living, if he or she constantly lives in fear that death may come at any moment. Despite Tolstoy’s claims about death, I do not agree with some of his arguments. First, it is true that death is inevitable; no amount of technological advancement can spare a person from breathing his or her last breath. Everyone is at the mercy of the situations that life gives. No person can escape death no matter how hard he or she tries, because death no matter how horrifying as it may sound will find a way to get to the person.
However, I do not agree that a person’s accomplishments are all in vain because of death. I do not believe that death can completely erase a person’s legacy from the world. Legacy is something that can keep a person alive despite him or her not being physically present anymore. Therefore, his or her accomplishments are not in vain because people will continue to remember him or her. Many well-known people can attest to this, because even after decades from their death people still remember them and their accomplishments are still felt by other people. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and many other people who fought for equality are remembered because of their achievements and contributions. These people changed the course of history because of their advocacies to end slavery based on color. The example show that although death will physically take away a person, his or her imprint in the world lives on because of the people who constantly remembers their accomplishments.
In Developmental Psychology, there is a stage according to Erickson called integrity vs. despair, where a person question’s his or her life. Did I live a meaningful life? Those who felt that their lives in the past were nothing and has been wasted; they will feel many regrets in life. They will feel the bitterness of despair that they did live a life worth remembering. I think, this is the same for everyone. We all search for that one defining purpose in our life that will make us proud in the end that we have lived a life that was well-lived. Despite death being inevitable, it must not hinder people from living the life they want to live.
As I reflect on my own life and my accomplishments, I tend to ask myself on whether I am able to significantly contribute to other people, even in simple manners. If I list the things I managed to do in my life up to now, will I be able to identify one defining instance? Now, I still can not express the life I had lived or I want to live, because it is still too early. I still have situations to encounter, people to meet and other instances that will help me understand my life better. But thinking that life is still long, must not be an excuse to waste my life doing nothing because like what Tolstoy mentioned death is unpredictable.
Tolstoy was known because of deep analyses on life and death; he made people question their own lives. It is true that death is powerful and inescapable, but it can not erase someone totally in the memories and lives of other people. In conclusion, Tolstoy’s work is a constant reminder for people to search for one defining meaning in one’s life, in order to live a life worth remembering. As a person, who is still in the process of writing my own life story, the lessons on both life and death will remind me to use my time wisely, so that in the end I can say to myself that I have accomplished my mission. Instead of focusing that life’s accomplishments are all in vain in the end, I think what Tolstoy is trying to say is that material accomplishment should not be the definition of a person’s life. The amount of money a person managed to make should not be the basis of the life he or she lived because truly all these material things are nothing in the face of death. A person should rather focus on intangible imprint he or she will live in others. People who are being constantly reminded up to today are the people who left their mark in history, who changed the lives of others and dedicated their lives to a meaningful life. Their accomplishments define who they are as people. In the end, I believe that our lives will be defined not by our material possessions but by the manner which we touched other people’s life. Our efforts should not be wasted on trying to be the richest or the becoming the most powerful person on the world, but rather we should try to be a person who is influential to others, in order for us to continue to live even after death.
References:
Chikun C. All about life and death. A Basic Dictionary of Life and Death Volume 2, The Ishi Press Tokyo, San Jose London. 1993
Leadbeater C. Life After Death
