11.02.03
what’s my price tag?
last week i had the pleasure of determining my life insurance benefits and beneficiaries. it was really depressing knowing that i won’t be around to see anyone receive this “money”. the only thing that seems to be left of you if you die is the memories that people hang onto and the stuff that they buy with your life insurance money. what is the monetary value of a human life? i was sorting through all of this and giving 40% here and 30% there and then on my way home from work i heard “seasons of love” from the “rent” soundtrack and i realized that there are only so many ways you can measure a person’s life. the only thing that i can think of that makes a person’s life worth living is what they create, but painting or writing or composing isn’t enough because if what you create is no longer interesting to anybody it gradually dies along with the memory of your existence. it’s mind-blowing to me how many amazing people there must have been throughout history who no one remembers anymore. they have no direct surviving family members and no one knows their stories so they are forever lost. it’s depressing if i think too long about it. how can you possibly make a mark on a world that changes so fast — where things are erased and rewritten on an almost daily basis? who will care about napster or my iPod 1000 years from now? who will even know i was here? next year i think i’ll just take the default benefits and then maybe i can go back to living in a world where my own mortality seems unrealistic.
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