Who Walks Behind - Memoro Menti

Memoro menti is Latin for “you have to die” according to Wikipedia.

Thousands of years ago, Roman generals appointed slaves the task of constantly whispering to them something along the lines of, “you too will die,” as they rode via horseback. This is arguably the origin of the phrase “memoro menti”.

This is also, I suspect, the subject matter of the Ghost song “Pro Memoria.” The chorus of this song is, “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.” The song is therefore the slave’s constant whisper to the general: “you are mortal, and your time will end.”

I find myself more acutely aware of an inevitable end these days (hopefully not soon, but inevitable nonetheless). The following have helped present this truth to me: a current injury, a surgically removed tumor from my 20s, and the realization that time accelerates with age.

I do not delude myself into thinking that this present life is a gateway to some sort of eternity. Such a notion strikes me as vain (what other biological creature is bestowed such an honor, and worse, a self-appointed one?), and also potentially lazy. An assumption of eternity is often an excuse to do nothing with the present moment, under the false assumption that there will always be a tomorrow. One could argue that religion convinces its followers to limit themselves, to go “sinless,” with promises of eternity as well.

Such an epiphany, the realization of finiteness, renders the concept of “sacrifice” a difficult one to grasp. The justification of sacrifice, after all, is for the sake of a better tomorrow. But tomorrow is not a guarantee and therefore sacrifice is a gamble.

Conversely, to neglect tomorrow, to indulge in full-blown hedonism in this present moment, runs a very real risk of creating a hellish future. So, one has no choice but to assume that a tomorrow will exist, that some preparation for it is warranted, and that some sacrifice today could potentially render tomorrow “better.”

Past and present. Sacrifice and indulgence. It is a balancing act. To accept the “hell” of today for the sake “heaven” tomorrow, to sacrifice, runs the very real risk of dying having only experienced hell. I think of a father I knew who died of cancer in his 40s having only known a life of “saving aggressively for an early retirement.” His son, determined not to repeat the same mistake, indulged in a life of extreme hedonism and wound up in deep poverty by the same age.

Tomorrow is not a guarantee and neither is good health. There is a yin/yang sort of walk on a tightrope in regards to handling the present and future. And there are no answers to how far one should stray towards either side.

So we work, but we are wary of working “too much” (to die in a cubicle is to never have lived!). And we conserve, but we are wary of conserving “too much” (to live for “saving” is to forsake life completely!). And we are tasked with meditating and soul search for what exactly “too much” is in our lives. In doing so, do we “die in a happy medium?”

I prepare for running and retirement and cycling and skateboarding and travel and hiking up mountains and swimming in seas and reading new books!

And while I plan I also must whisper to myself, “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.”