#10: At age 27
Disclaimer: I talk frankly about thoughts of dying
For the longest time, I had a hunch that I would die at 27. I don’t remember exactly when I first thought it. At some point in teenagehood, I stopped assuming I’d live to old age and started considering I might die young. Somewhere along the line, that number just sort of got attached to it. I vaguely have the memory that It was revealed to me in a dream. I also vaguely have a memory that in a dream, I got married at 27. So for a small period of my life, I would jokingly say:
I have a feeling I will die at 27. Either that or I will get married at 27. More or less the same thing no?
When asked if I have a hunch about how I will die, I say suddenly. That sounds significantly less morbid but still sounds quite so. I have a feeling my death will come as a surprise to me and the people around me. This is where my real fear of death comes from. The fear of the suddenness of it. That brings it closer yet to me.
Like: snap. Gone. Dead
Being afraid of dying isn’t the same thing as being afraid of dying suddenly.
Do you know Jean-Michel Basquiat?
My friend told me about him a couple of years ago and since then he has popped up on my radar a couple of times. His art has been pretty influential to hip hop and I think that might have something to do with him coming from a background doing graffiti. He is considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. As a matter of speaking, he was a very successful artist. Basquiat’s most expensive painting, Untitled (1982), sold for 110 million dollars in 2017 (a record at the time)
At the time he painted it, Basquiat was only 21. Between 1981 (Age 20) and 1983 (Age 22) is often considered Basquiat’s most successful years as a painter. His paintings from this period are currently mostly valued at over 20 million dollars although many of them priced between 10 and 50 thousand dollars at their original valuation. In talking about him, my friend often talks about his life as often feeling as if complete in a way. ‘He was able to live a full life’ she says. From growing up, to becoming an artist, rising to relative fame & success and then the downward spiral that followed. Basquiat died in 1988. He was 27.
He falls into a group of well-known successful people who died at the age. There are enough people who have died at this age that there’s a name coined for the group, Club 27. Other popular artists that have died at this age include Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. When I first started thinking of death at this age, I did not know of Club 27. Finding out about it was one of those weird moments when you go ‘oooh’ to yourself. Like looking at a weird sign.
These days, as I near 27. I don't think too much about it. It’s not productive anymore. I am at a point in life where many of my ambitions go right past that age. I am currently on a 5-year commitment plan to make a break in audio storytelling. It’s a personal promise I made to myself to stay on podcast production and make it into a lucrative way of making a living. If after 5 years, it still isn’t looking promising, then I go back to tech. The 5 year period comes to an end as I turn 28. Dying before then would be inconvenient although it would also mean I never have to find out if things would work out.
I also don't think I get married by 27. Chances of that are as close to 0 as things can be. It isn’t impossible but it’s incredibly unlikely. I think these days that any thoughts of settling won’t happen till I am in my 30s. I think this is at least part of why I have been single for a long time and perhaps will remain single for even longer. Another reason I think I might remain single for a long time is this thought experiment:
If I found out I was going to die in a year, would I try to find love in that time so at least I’d have experienced it before I died or would I not?
The first time I asked myself this question, my default was yes I would. I’d like to live fully in that year. I’d like to experience love. But then I realised how selfish that was. Just because I wanted to love before I die, I’d be putting someone in a situation where they’d love only to lose. So I decided not. 27 isn’t here yet. Let’s not take chance.
I am still working hard at being able to accept the possibility of dying young. Harder now than ever. A lot of the personal essays I have written in the last year have been centred around my thoughts of death. This essay was written as I thought of what kind of life I’d like to live if my life was to be short.
And I try to live with this in mind. I think often of how to make the best of my current moments. I think of what is most important to me. I think often of what should be most important to me. What should make my life a worthy one? How can I maximize my impact on the lives of the people around me? How can I make things that matter? How can I write into history - things that people will discover years after I am dead? What stories will I leave behind?
I think often of faith and belief. Of what comes after death. I cannot tell you that I have a conclusive thought on this at the moment. Every now and then, I think that I have gotten to something that I am satisfied with but then months later, everything crumbles. The thing I am thinking these days is that it should not matter what comes after death. That you should live a good life and contribute positively to the small world around you. That’s all that will ever matter on Earth
It’s a strange balance to live with. A mixture of ambition and preparation for death. And it’s still a work-in-progress. I hope to write a better essay about it when I find that I know exactly how to expect death while still having ambition. I can tell you one thing about it now, I don’t expect that to happen before I am 27.
This essay was inspired by ‘Why I Hope to Die at 75’
PS: I have intentionally stopped writing daily. I did not like the quality of the essays that came out with a day deadline. I will still write and read every day but I will only post once or twice a week. I want enough time to actually think critically about what I write.
