Death is the propulsion for life. It is the characteristic that pushes mankind to do and live. It is the knowledge that one day we won’t be on this Earth that makes us so stuck on achieving. Whether we know it or not death is one of the biggest reasons we have children.

Death is intensely important–alway relevant–and hits us all eventually. Just as James Shirley put it in his famous poem “Death the Leveller” death is an equalizer. In the end we will all die, and in this it makes our collective human existence seem tragic and that much more worth it.

Without death what would be the value of life? That is what makes existence so important and precious. It is the fact that life is a constant struggle on thousands of levels to avoid death. That makes the one thing that lived a gem in the field of ones who didn’t live.

Yet we take life for granted because we see living things everyday. Then when someone close to us dies, it reminds us all that one day we will as well, and that in some way we have to deal with it. This is what makes some people hesitant to talk to old people and really get involved in a senior’s life. Not only because they remind us of death, but also because we feel that they are so close to death that we don’t want to get invested then hurt.

But the truth is that we are all on the verge of death at any given moment, and we just don’t acknowledge it or don’t want to. This is something that we forget to realize. Even with modern medicine we could still die at any time, and we often take each day for granted. Which is a shame, because often times we forget to acknowledge that even our birth is immensely improbable. So much so that it is awe-inspiring that we exist, right now, reading this because of the combination of a whirlwind of circumstance–or chance or fate whatever you want to believe–yet still all this appreciation and value is impossible without death.

Without death we would have little reason to live and grow. It would make life less precious and valuable if death was not around. In the end, maybe we should be grateful.

Death gets a 5 out of 5.