And you are dead

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And you are dead. When do you die? The medical answer is banal, "DOA" Dead on Arrival. There comes a moment when the cells in the body, deprived of nutrients, fail to perform the tasks that we call "life." And at that moment, it is safe to burn off the remaining cells, or put it six feet under ground and call it a day. After the ceremonies and some real and false tears, life goes on, except for the cells six feet under or those reduced to ashes and polluting some water body. But this death is banal. It has no importance to the one who died. That person doesn’t really give a rat's behind about the death. Once the person is dead. Till that point it can be an excruciating life of pain or a happy life of being in an airplane hit by a missile and you are dead before you hit the ground. And splatter. But the real death happens when you are alive. And I see the dying around me. Death is the end of memories. When you decide that there is nothing more to remember. Remember how the "old" people would always say things like, "when I was 10 years old I used to walk 5 kilometers to school." Really? And so? The "so" is: that is the memory, the story, that defines the life before death. Those memories, the ones that are built with bondhus that surround you, and you now sit on a park bench and look at the World go by you and you think of the memories. Because you are dead. Because you have ceased to make memories. We die when we suddenly decide that today will be exactly like yesterday and tomorrow will be exactly like today. Then we do not need memories, because there is nothing of today that you want to remember tomorrow, because tomorrow looks exactly like today. That is death. When you decide. Yes, you decide. That you are so content with your death-like life that there is no more of a need to make memories. Those things that you will look back at and say, "Wow, that kathi roll with a bondhu at the Hyatt is something I will remember till the day I die." And every day you make these memories, you do something and say, "Really, I did that?" Why die when you can live? Why stop making memories when you can still make them? Do things that you will remember tomorrow because you would not do them the day after. This is not "rocket science" - don’t let any day in your life look like the day before in your life, because when days repeat, life stops. And it really is not that difficult. You don’t have to parachute off a plane to make things memorable. All it takes is the peaceful moment with another person, as you sit on the floor and imagine the future, or that wild moment in the car as you negotiate the Washington, DC traffic with the person in the passenger seat telling you to stay in your lane. Do something that you did not do yeterday and will not do tomorrow. Take that plate that is supposed to be "unbreakable" according to the advertisement and drop it on the hard floor. See if it breaks. That you will remember, and you will probably not do tomorrow. But t the moment the ceramic splatters on the floor - you have made a memory and you are living. Drop the plate. Live. Those are the memories of life. When memories stop, so does life. Make your memories. Live. And make them with the bondhus who want to make memories. It’s like what Bon Jovi said, "You wanna make a memory?/You wanna steal a piece of time?/You can sing the melody to me/And I can write a couple lines." Indeed to write a couple of lines about you. So that we can keep living - making memories.

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