What to do with our Last Second on Earth

A Last Time meditation in an almond orchard in the tribal lands

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This is a Last Time meditation.

The Stoics believed that routinely contemplating our death leads to deeper gratitude for life.

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We step off at 2330. It’s cold and we’re underdressed, knowing that our 80# of gear – prepared with such care that not one unnecessary ounce can be found – are going to have us sweating once we hit our stride.

The rough terrain, the ancient and narrow foot paths skirting irrigation ditches, the caution for IED’s, the sections of ultra-slow walking so that sleeping dogs won’t wake and bark, the heal-to-toe stepping near mud walls the other side of which hold sleeping men, women, children, or the enemy – all of it requires a pace of around thirty minutes per kilometer.

I am the point man. After two hours of steady rucking, we set up a defensive perimeter near a rock outcropping at the base of a pre-determined hillside. After a silent round of fist bumps, the other sniper team peels off to summit their pinnacle. I lead my four man sniper team on.

The ancient foot paths appear mesmerizing in the green glow of the night vision goggles. After another hour of rucking, the packs digging into our trapezius muscles, the sweat saturating our camouflage, I raise my fist to signal the team to take a knee.

This isn’t planned. It’s not called for. I’m compelled to stop and I cannot resist.

There is zero light pollution in the mountainous tribal lands. I have never seen the Milky Way with such vivid intensity; it stretches across the entire arc of the sky like white, blue, and gold diamonds scattered across a black page. The almond trees surrounding us are planted in neat rows and the thin canopy of leaves overhead create a comforting cocoon. A raw earthy scent warms my nostrils. My muscles are flushed with blood and vaguely exhausted, so I kneel and I lean on my rifle and I feel a stab of pleasure. I acknowledge a deep and primal satisfaction that the four of us are surrounded by dozens of the enemy; that every single action, no matter how small, means something; that silence is life, and an unwary footfall may mean death. Nothing is more satisfying in this moment than breathing this clean, cold, mountain air; nothing is more alive or vibrant or ancient or simple.

What then? Our lives are bounded: on one end was our nonexistence prior to our birth, and on the other is our nonexistence after we die. What lies between is up to us. It is a finite number of individual moments.

Ok, what follows? Unlike the example above, which is the closest to pre-state living we will ever get unless the modern world implodes and we are forced into a primitive way of life once again, we are drowning in options: television, phones, social media, degrees to be earned, money to be stashed away, errands to run, things to buy.

What then is the nature of stopping in a world built for movement?

It helps to think about what would have happened had I not stopped. What if my focus was on the future, which doesn’t exist, or some past event, which also doesn’t exist, and I sacrifice the only thing that actually does exist – the present moment? Let’s say I died on that mission. If I had, that moment that was so perfect that I literally dropped to my knees in gratitude would never have been lived and breathed.

So much for that moment in the almond orchard.

Now what if I don’t stop to savor the moment today? I have more than enough experience to know where this leads. There was a period where I would set before myself goals that must be obtained and I would sacrifice everything for them. My calendar would dictate my day to day movements and my small moments of free time would be spent looking at the calendars on my computer and my phone thinking about what comes next, what comes next, what comes next, and all the while I lost second after second to an if.

If Epictetus were looking over my shoulder back then as he does now, how would my perspective have been different? There is a devastatingly important call I must be on? Only if I'm still here to join it. There is a crucial meeting downtown? Only if I'm still alive to attend. There is an examination or a work function or an X or a Y that I absolutely must be at? Only if I'm still around.

The old version of me, whose voice still lingers in my subconscious, disagrees: “What happened to being mission oriented? To setting a task and relishing overcoming it, and progressing, and building a better future?” This is a worthy question, and once I hear it, it’s already burning within me to throw my books out of the open window to my left and start making phone calls, and start emailing, and start googling, and start planning to complete the next mission: job, title, degree, status, thing.

But then I remember the smell of the almond trees and the the spiral arms of the Milky Way through the canopy above me and I stop to think.

What are you calling a “mission?” And what is the “task?” What higher purpose do I have than what Epictetus would have me do, which is to savor the universal string of causes and effects as it unfolds? And to learn how to love every moment I have been gifted as if it were my last? To turn each misfortune or irritant or success or annoyance or failure, no matter whether I regard it as “good” or “bad”, into something I crave with the most brutal joy and gratitude?

Can you show me one wretched goal I could set before myself that eclipses grabbing some aberrant thought from my mind, placing it on the rack, and putting it to the test to learn its truth or falsity, its beauty or ugliness, its usefulness or its uselessness, so that I can live with more awareness and aggression in this exact second?

Show me one task higher than this one.

I took a knee in that almond orchard before I had ever even heard of the Last Time meditation. This isn’t surprising given that the Stoics simply codified and articulated ancient human truths, truths that anyone who has ever learned to love their suffering – war, illness, torture, death, dying – can attest to.

And what flows downstream from this sort of mindset?

This may be the last time I ever rub my hands through Carson’s fur and smell that musky dog smell and look into those copper brown eyes flecked with green.

This may be the last time I ever ruck this wooded trail and feel the roots beneath my feet.

This may be the last time I ever eat these cold black grapes.

This may be the last time I ever draft one of these essays to flesh out the inner discourse.

This may be the last time I ever look up at the stars before I close my eyes and die.

It’s worth asking ourselves throughout the day: What if this were my last second on earth? How would I act differently?

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