Finally is finite. Not in its uses, but at its core. To finally fall asleep essentially means the sleeplessness is over. The possibilities are finite. No ergo, no way out — simply: done.
“Get a move on, will you!”
Enough with the dawdling, then — time to get to work. The finite has a rather authoritarian way of making itself heard.
For a long time, the phrase “a finite life” caused me considerable discomfort. In the storm-and-stress years, everything feels endless. This could go on forever.
But it doesn’t.
A conversation with an insurance agent left me sitting at the table in considerable shock. The man suddenly started talking about the — no — about my life expectancy. First of all: I barely knew the man, so why did he want to know what expectations I had for my life? Yes, I had misunderstood the phrase. Finally — yes, that word again — I understood what was meant. The salesman of securities explained to me that I was average. In terms of life span, that is. He said this with considerable confidence.
That claim struck me as suspicious too, because the agent was trying to sell me life insurance. So why was he bringing up the end of my life as a working assumption? I wanted to insure precisely my life — to keep it from being finite.
And that realisation stayed with me for a long time. When will the time come? What awaits me after my death? And what exactly am I insuring here? Somewhere in my forties it became clear to me: the days are limited. Not as a concept — as a fact. My time as a living person is limited and uncountable. I don’t rely on the calculated average of a man who turns up in a statistic. Who would willingly pass for average? There you have it.
But I became aware, back then, of just how limited my days are. How quickly time flies sometimes. And how even more quickly the next generation grows up.
What might it feel like to think that today or tomorrow my life will be over? Well, I have played with that thought a few times. Has my life been good? Have I found some kind of meaning that lets me look back in peace? What do I still want to do before the day of my finitude arrives? Oh là là, the list has grown longer, even though I have long since passed the apex of my life’s arc. And I feel good about that. Sure, I know the painful sides of being in one’s seventies. Stiff joints and a stubborn will are part of daily life. That doesn’t bother me particularly.
Because the knowledge of my life’s finitude strikes me as enormously valuable. Putting things off is reckless at my stage of life.
What remains? Clearly all the living souls I have come to know over the many years.
A privilege that makes finitude a little gentler.
