“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute.

When a pilot dies in the harness his death seems something that inheres in the craft itself, and in the beginning the hurt it brings is perhaps less than the pain sprung of a different death. Assuredly he has vanished, has undergone his ultimate mutation; but his presence is still not missed as deeply as we might miss bread. For in this craft we ta

said. “There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.”

It’s about a man who was sitting on his roof because a tidal wave was sweeping through his village. The water was well up to the roof when along came a rescue team in a rowboat. They tried hard to reach him and finally when they did, they shouted, “Well, come on. Get into the boat!” And he said, “No, no. God will save me.” So the water rose higher

Such accounts sometimes give the impression that people reliably become happier as a result of facing the truth about death, which isn’t the case; “happier” is clearly the wrong word for the new depth that is added to life when you grasp, deep in your bones, the fact that you’re going to die and that your time is therefore severely limited. But thi

“Leap, and the net will appear” is a saying we sometimes hear in reference to such situations.12 The idea behind the phrase is that when you are backed into a corner, an impossible solution will present itself. At the times when you feel stuck, the right thing to do is take a risk and go “all in” with whatever the scariest option might be.