Being Remembered After Death

Death is one of those topics we spend our whole lives avoiding. It's uncomfortable. It's the last thing we'll ever face, so we trick ourselves into thinking it doesn't matter until the very end. That's why most people never bother thinking about it.

But I did. Early.

I don’t remember when exactly I first realized humans were mortal, but I remember asking my mom, maybe at 4 or 5: “Mom, we’re not going to die, right?” She said, “Of course not.” But I knew she was lying. Primarily because she was a terrible liar; I figured that out when I asked where babies come from.

I also spent some time in hospitals as a kid, due to lung issues. And maybe it was something I overheard, or maybe it was just my brain trying to make sense of things, but I had this strange certainty that I wouldn’t make it past 18. I can’t explain why, but I felt it.

And honestly, that mindset probably shaped everything.

While most kids were trying to stay inside the lines, I was doing shit I wanted to do before I passed. I wrote poems at 7, two even made it to a local newspaper. I wrote stories, won olympiads, flunked classes, topped them again, made YouTube videos, acted in foreign-language plays, binged video games, wrote a book during the pandemic just to learn English, became a video editor, a web dev, an online instructor, taught 100,000+ people… the list goes on.

Is there something special about me? I’d like to think so, but I don’t believe it. I was driven by urgency. It was knowing this ride ends. That this life isn’t a rehearsal. That the clock is ticking, and most people are pretending they can’t hear it.

It was because of the fear that I became free. I created my own environment, through changing the lens I used to look at the world.

So… how do I want to be remembered after death?

Truth is, I don’t give a fuck.

People romanticize legacy. It’s noise. It’s because they are just afraid of death and are trying to cheat it, rather than acknowledge it.

People think meditation is about having no thoughts. It’s not. It’s about watching them pass without grabbing onto them.

Death is the same. You acknowledge it. You respect it. But you don’t cling to it.

You live. Fully. That’s all.