Yesterday's post was not intended to be the first in the series, but here we are. The obstacle has become the way.

MythBusters premiered during my freshman year of high school, and slotted into the subscription list on our first-gen TiVo alongside Junkyard Wars, so in a way this hits me more like finding out about the death of a friend I lost contact with when I went off to college (not having a TV or a TiVo in the dorm).

He was 49 and died suddenly of a brain aneurysm.

The obvious quotation ("You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think." Meditations 2.11) seems trite.

Instead,

Human Life.

Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting fame: uncertain. ...

Then what can guide us?

Only philosophy.

Which means making sure that the power within stays safe and free from assault, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing randomly or dishonestly and with imposture, not dependent on anyone else's doing something or not doing it.

Meditations, 2.17

Memento mori.