Memento Mori, the Search for Meaning, and Going Outside

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We're all going to die—our consciousness will be snuffed out, and we'll slip from life into oblivion. But this isn't something to fear. Isn't the most restful night of sleep the one from which you awake and have no recollection of? If you had stressful dreams all night and you wake up anxious and exhausted from fighting imaginary battles the previous eight hours, that's a shitty night of sleep. But if you don't remember anything at all? Sweet oblivion! That's the kind of sleep that I want every night!

So it is with death. We slip from this existence of pain and struggle into a sweet slumber from whence we'll never wake. The pain is gone, and only oblivion remains.

But until the sweet release of oblivion, we have the opportunity to live. Not everyone takes advantage of this opportunity, though, and many people waste their lives by simply existing. Many people never truly embrace the beauty, vitality, and opportunities inherent in life.

To encourage us to fully embrace this one short, fleeting life that we have, the Stoic philosophers exhort us to contemplate our future deaths with the term “memento mori,” which literally means, "remember that you must die." This contemplation of our future death should help clarify what’s most important right here and right now.

At its core, Outside 365 is a call to embrace the beauty of life. It's a call and a challenge to head outdoors and soak in the beauty of the natural world on every single day of our existence. 

No day is too full, too stressful, or too painful to keep us from fulfilling this one simple objective. And by taking control of our lives in this one small area, we find that we start to actually live our lives, and not simply exist—barely make it through each day.

By working to craft the type of life that we want to live through small, daily actions, we take control of our destiny in the here and now. We don't put off living well for some future moment. Instead, we choose to live well right now and create value and meaning in our lives.

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Does your life have "Meaning" — can you really leave a Legacy?

Going outside every single day is a small thing, and some people might even say that this small action is meaningless. But if this isn't meaningful, then I would ask those people: "what IS?"

As I've mentioned before, in the past, I've personally gotten too wrapped up in the search for capital-M "Meaning"—a grand meaning for my existence played out on a cosmic, or even metaphysical, landscape. But when we realize that we're not (not a single one of us) capital-P People, but are instead lowercase-p people, we realize that the search capital-M Meaning becomes impossible.

When we sink deep into memento mori and contemplate not only the span of our lives from birth to death but also the role of our individual lives in the grand sweep of humanity, and then the entire span of human existence on a cosmic level, we realize how utterly insignificant we actually are.

You are one of over 7 billion people alive today. Of these 7 billion people, how many do you think will be remembered 100 years after their death? I'm not talking thousands of years in the future (like the famous Stoic philosophers), I'm talking about a measly century. It's tough to forecast, isn't it, but we'd like to think that we will leave an impression a meter 100 years in the future.

One of the arguments that many humans give for reproducing, for choosing to create spawn, is the desire to leave a legacy. Or, put another way—to create "Meaning." So let's try an exercise related to families, shall we?

Exercise: Pull out a pen and two sheets of paper. On the first sheet, write down the first name of all 8 of your great-grandparents. On the second sheet, write down the first name of all 16 of your great-great-grandparents.

How many names did you get? I'm sure many of you will do better than I did, but me? I only got one first name of a great-grandparent and nobody from the previous generation.

Think about it: if 20 years is a generation, then for most of us, our great-great grandparents died much less than 100 years before our births. I could probably have added great-great-great-grandparents to this exercise, but I'm sure you get the point by now.

It's shocking but true that the vast majority of humans won't even be remembered by their own descendants—the people that wouldn't even exist without them. So what makes you think you can live a life with enough capital-M Meaning to leave a capital-L Legacy that will impact the human race?

When we realize that capital-M Meaning and capital-L Legacy are both out of reach, it's painful and disorienting at first. But if we give ourselves the room to push through the void and sense of emptiness, we might discover that, actually, there is still meaning to be found.

It just happens to be lowercase-m meaning.

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Lowercase-m meaning.

Now we come full circle back to Outside 365 because for everyone reading this blog, going outside, moving your body, and soaking in the beauty of the natural world are rich in meaning. Losing our sense of time as we gaze in wonder at a mountaintop view, or when we marvel at the "shwoop shwoop shwoop" sound of a raven's wings as it flaps over our heads—these things fill us with a sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.

Realizing that we can find and even create lowercase-m meaning in our own lives ought to be an encouraging and edifying experience. Instead of searching for Meaning by trying to leave a lasting legacy or prostrating ourselves before a demanding deity, we can instead take the reins and create meaning for ourselves. It doesn't need to be grand or far-reaching, but we can create meaning right here, in this present moment.

And Outside 365 trains us to do exactly that.

Once you've gotten good at completing the Outside 365 challenge, you might find yourself wondering what other ways you can create meaning and purpose in your own life. You won't be forced to leave it up to chance or whims of anybody else, but you now know that you can take control and create meaning for yourself. After having practiced this for months (or years) through Outside 365, this pursuit in other areas of your life will feel natural. While it might not be easy, it will at least feel possible or attainable.

If all this talk of creating meaning, or the difference between "Meaning" and "meaning," seems strange to you, I encourage you to start small by simply going outside today and moving your body for at least one mile.

And then do it tomorrow. And do it the day after that.

And wait and see what happens.