I can vividly remember sitting at the kitchen table when I was maybe 7 years old, two fork-fulls into some shrimp pasta, and breaking down crying, gripped by the thought of my inevitable death. Can you imagine that? 7 years old and having an existential crisis. But it’s true. In that moment, for some reason, I could just feel the shocking reality that one day my life was going to end and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I read somewhere once that the reason humans create art, build empires, invent things, is all rooted in the fact that we’re the only creatures that are conscious of our own deaths. We know that one day it’s going to end, so we create, work, build, modify, invent, and toil all to leave our mark on the world, to be remembered. To, in a sense, never die. Keep on living through our work, our progeny.

How funny is that? That the mere thought of death is enough to send you into tears, or drive you to create.