Speaker 1: I'll get atm hope you bloody terrific. So today I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure how this is going to go. It's
Speaker 1: this is another freestyle, of course, this is just me.
Speaker 1: And while I've done hundreds of solo episodes both here
Speaker 1: and with Life, the podcast that I did two hundred
Speaker 1: episodes of, and this is different because I've never I've
Speaker 1: never done a solo episode about death. And I also
Speaker 1: know that it's something that elicits a you know, a
Speaker 1: broad range of emotions and thoughts and feelings and responses
Speaker 1: from people. But having said that, it's it's something that
Speaker 1: impacts all of us, and eventually it's where we all
Speaker 1: end up, right, And I don't. I don't. This is funny,
Speaker 1: But I don't really have a major plan or intention
Speaker 1: like with a lot of my a lot of my messages,
Speaker 1: I have a clear plan, you know, what I want
Speaker 1: to get out of this and what I want to
Speaker 1: you want to leave you with, and what I want,
Speaker 1: you know, like, what's the point. I've got an idea
Speaker 1: of what the point is, but I'm not actually sure.
Speaker 1: But what I'm sure of is and I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: by the way, this is just what I think. But
Speaker 1: I'm reasonably sure that someone needs to hear what I'm
Speaker 1: about to share, and statistically that's very likely because we
Speaker 1: have thousands of listeners a day. But I think maybe
Speaker 1: for a person or quite a few people, perhaps this
Speaker 1: might be not because it's coming from me, and not
Speaker 1: because I'm a fucking genius. We know I'm not, but
Speaker 1: just because I think the ideas and thoughts and messages
Speaker 1: might resonate with some of you, or maybe even a
Speaker 1: lot of you. I'm not sure. So this is one
Speaker 1: that I couldn't just freestyle. I thought, I can't just
Speaker 1: riff on on death and dying for twenty minutes or
Speaker 1: thirty minutes or forty minutes. And so I've written a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. I've spent the last hour or two
Speaker 1: just writing and thinking, and so some of what I'm
Speaker 1: about to share with you is written by me. I
Speaker 1: don't normally. I don't normally write things. I don't normally
Speaker 1: read things per se. I might have some dot points
Speaker 1: that are written down, but as you know, like right now,
Speaker 1: of the last minute or two or three, I've been freestyling.
Speaker 1: As I do. Mostly I sit down and if I think,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm going to talk about goal setting. I'll
Speaker 1: have ten dot points and off I go. If I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about mental and emotional health, same thing,
Speaker 1: eight or ten dot points and off I go. And
Speaker 1: I talk for bloody way too long. But today is
Speaker 1: going to be a combination of stories, real stories, and
Speaker 1: freestyling and some stuff that I've written. The last year
Speaker 1: for me has been an interesting time in many ways,
Speaker 1: but specific to this, a lot of people, quite a
Speaker 1: few people that I care about, have been very sick,
Speaker 1: are still very sick, and some have passed away. And
Speaker 1: there's something profoundly humbling about standing at the edge of
Speaker 1: life with somebody that you love, you know, like in
Speaker 1: the proximity of death, It's like the air feels heavier,
Speaker 1: like time bends and stretches and contracts, and the bullshit,
Speaker 1: the trivialities of the world seem to melt away and
Speaker 1: leave behind only truly what matters. I've sat with quite
Speaker 1: a few people in my life who are dying close
Speaker 1: to death, some of them some of them hours away
Speaker 1: from death. And it's for me it's been in those
Speaker 1: moments that I'm off at a window into almost like
Speaker 1: some way more profound, deeper truth about existence and the
Speaker 1: human condition that I can't normally access or I don't
Speaker 1: pert maybe I can, but I just don't because I'm
Speaker 1: so caught up in bullshit, a truth that I often
Speaker 1: overlook because I'm just way too busy and distracted and
Speaker 1: full of whatever, you know, to see what is and
Speaker 1: maybe to pull back that curtain and to be in
Speaker 1: the moment and to be in that level of love
Speaker 1: and connection with somebody, because I'm just too busy doing
Speaker 1: stuff and doing life and ticking boxes and and not
Speaker 1: that those things are bad, you know. And I don't
Speaker 1: think we need to walk around with this morbid kind
Speaker 1: of awareness of death and dying, but rather I just
Speaker 1: think every now and then, you know, for me, I
Speaker 1: think this is a one in two thousand conversations. So
Speaker 1: this is not going to be a reoccurring theme, But
Speaker 1: it's I find the way that people are psychologically and
Speaker 1: emotionally and personally and interpersonally, the way that people are
Speaker 1: around the proximity of death and dying, whether it is
Speaker 1: the person themselves that are sick and dying or it's
Speaker 1: somebody that we care about, and to see the interpersonal
Speaker 1: dynamics between two people change drastically because all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: things are different, and they're not temporarily different, they're fucking different.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, my friends got cancer, or all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, my friends in hospital on life support,
Speaker 1: or all of a sudden as is as was the
Speaker 1: case for me about five years ago, my friend dropped
Speaker 1: dead in front of me on the gym floor. And
Speaker 1: and I know that story has been told a few
Speaker 1: times here, and it turned out great for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know the story. In my training partner
Speaker 1: had a cardiac arrest in the gym on a Friday
Speaker 1: night at five minutes past five on a Friday night,
Speaker 1: and he was dead until twenty two minutes past five.
Speaker 1: He was literally dead, not breathing, no heartbeat, no respiration, nothing,
Speaker 1: for seventeen minutes. And it turned out well. And it
Speaker 1: was lucky that I was there, and it was lucky
Speaker 1: that the ambulance got there within eleven minutes, and a
Speaker 1: whole lot of things happened, but for me that moment
Speaker 1: where so now I'm standing over the top of my
Speaker 1: friend who's dead for the last five or ten seconds,
Speaker 1: just took his last breath, exhaled. I had to turn
Speaker 1: him over. He was face down on the floor in
Speaker 1: the gym. I had to, you know, assess what I
Speaker 1: needed to do and all of that and turn him
Speaker 1: over and start CPR and all of that, which I did.
Speaker 1: And this ain't at all about me. This is in
Speaker 1: terms of what I did. It's about for me. It's
Speaker 1: about the perspective and the I can't even really find
Speaker 1: the right words, but the awareness and the clarity and
Speaker 1: the significance of that moment and in that moment where
Speaker 1: there was a chance that I might be able to
Speaker 1: help him. It is so interesting to have that level
Speaker 1: of focus and that type of mindset where not that
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this consciously, but when nothing matters
Speaker 1: at all except life, nothing in that moment, and trying
Speaker 1: to give this person back a life, trying to get
Speaker 1: that body breathing, trying to get that heart beating. And
Speaker 1: it's funny how seventeen minutes, I don't know how long
Speaker 1: it felt. I was going to say seventeen hours. It
Speaker 1: felt like seventeen fucking years, to be honest, And it
Speaker 1: all turned out well, and the ambos, who were fucking amazing,
Speaker 1: got there and they brought him back to life. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm forever grateful, and we're still training and
Speaker 1: he's alive and thriving and well, and he's now got
Speaker 1: a pacemaker. But to be in that moment where someone
Speaker 1: that you love is literally in your arms, like dying
Speaker 1: in your arms, and then dead and then collapses to
Speaker 1: the floor, that for me changed me forever. That for
Speaker 1: me made me. And I'm not saying I have this
Speaker 1: new profound, spiritual exist it's none of that. I'm still
Speaker 1: a fuck wed. I still do dumb shit. But it
Speaker 1: gave me a level of gratitude for life that I
Speaker 1: did not have the same level of anyway. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's profound, and I don't wish that on any of you.
Speaker 1: But it always dawns on me that sometimes, sometimes for
Speaker 1: some of us, something horrible or terrible or transformative in
Speaker 1: a bad way has to happen for us to all
Speaker 1: of a sudden be aware of and have gratitude for
Speaker 1: the thing that we had yesterday that we didn't appreciate
Speaker 1: or didn't value. And all we want today in the
Speaker 1: middle of the horrible thing that's happened, is we want
Speaker 1: yesterday back. We want yesterday's version of reality back, the
Speaker 1: one that we weren't grateful for. And so it's this
Speaker 1: interesting thing of trying to find gratitude when there hasn't
Speaker 1: been some kind of profound negative thing that gives us
Speaker 1: a level of perspective, Trying to find perspective, trying to
Speaker 1: find clarity without having to go through the catastrophe. I
Speaker 1: guess that's one of the challenges. I guess when someone
Speaker 1: we love is dying, it's like our usual filters, the
Speaker 1: one that protect us from all the uncomfortable truths and
Speaker 1: realities of mortality and vulnerability. You know, that's all stripped
Speaker 1: away in their absence, and we find ourselves face to
Speaker 1: face with the rawness of the human experience, the fragility
Speaker 1: of the human body, the resilience of the spirit, and
Speaker 1: the profound interconnectedness of love and loss and joy and pain.
Speaker 1: And then you know, being being around someone or being
Speaker 1: near someone who is nearing the end of their life.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody a family member or friend us who
Speaker 1: you love, who's sick. This like being in that moment,
Speaker 1: being in that reality with them invites or I think
Speaker 1: maybe creates, invites, creates a kind of awareness that's difficult
Speaker 1: to articulate, but it's unmistakable to feel like when you
Speaker 1: when you're in that, which is why I'm stumbling and
Speaker 1: bumbling a bit. It's you'll know it, you'll feel it,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh oh. It's as if time itself shifts
Speaker 1: from a linear march to something that's kind of circular
Speaker 1: and sacred almost still, Like for me being around people
Speaker 1: who are nearing the end of their physical journey, it
Speaker 1: bends time. Five minutes feels like five hours. Of course,
Speaker 1: time is a constant, but when we inject that constant
Speaker 1: of time with extreme emotion, then rather than being something
Speaker 1: that's linear and constant, time becomes a subjective experience where
Speaker 1: those five minutes feel like five hours. The things we
Speaker 1: take for granted, you know, a shared glance, the sound
Speaker 1: of someone's breath, the proximity of their arm or hand,
Speaker 1: or you know, a kiss or a conversation, an interaction
Speaker 1: like something that we don't even notice, Like these become
Speaker 1: treasures that we cling to with reverence. It's like the
Speaker 1: ordinary transforms in that moment into the extraordinary. The things
Speaker 1: we normally wouldn't notice are amazingly and instantly profound. The
Speaker 1: meaningless and forgettable become the profound and memorable, and minutes
Speaker 1: and moments become gifts, stored in our minds and our
Speaker 1: hearts forever. I remember my first trainer. His name was
Speaker 1: Maddie and he's obviously I say it was because he's
Speaker 1: passed away. He passed away in his early twenties and
Speaker 1: he was working with me. He was, when I say,
Speaker 1: my first trainer, the first trainer that worked for me.
Speaker 1: So he was one of the first personal trainers in
Speaker 1: Australia after me. He was amazing and he was a
Speaker 1: gifted teacher and coach and just people always say this,
Speaker 1: but truly an amazing human. And he had an accident
Speaker 1: and he ended up in his early twenties, fit, strong,
Speaker 1: healthy in hospital on life support. And back in the day,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they still call it, but back
Speaker 1: in the day, they would call it the person with
Speaker 1: his kind of traumatic brain injury brain dead. And I
Speaker 1: was him and I were close. Him and I were
Speaker 1: like brothers. I was like his big brother. And we
Speaker 1: had breakfast together, and we had lunch together, and we
Speaker 1: worked out together, and we worked together all day and
Speaker 1: I mentored him and coached him and loved him. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, seemingly, a moment later, I was sitting in
Speaker 1: a hospital, sitting in a chair beside his bed, holding
Speaker 1: his hand, and looked at him in the bed, and
Speaker 1: he looked perfect like like there was no like he
Speaker 1: looked just he looked just like Maddie asleep. And because
Speaker 1: he was a young bloke, I'd seen him asleep a lot.
Speaker 1: He'd sleep on the gym floor, he'd sleep in the
Speaker 1: staff room. He could sleep at the drop of it.
Speaker 1: And it was just like I was seeing him sleep again,
Speaker 1: but his body was there, but he wasn't there. And
Speaker 1: you know, in that moment, I was thinking about what
Speaker 1: I would say to him, what I wish he could hear,
Speaker 1: How I wished it was yesterday. I wished it was
Speaker 1: the day before. I wish that I could have twenty
Speaker 1: four hours again, or twenty four minutes, or even twenty
Speaker 1: four seconds. What I would say to him. You know,
Speaker 1: he knew that I loved him, but I never told
Speaker 1: him that. And I don't know why I didn't tell him.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, Maybe because I was a fucking
Speaker 1: dumb al for male, or it didn't come up. You know,
Speaker 1: it's amazing in that moment when and I was sitting
Speaker 1: there holding his hand or maybe his forearm, and I
Speaker 1: remember just like it being surreal, feeling like I know
Speaker 1: this is real, like logically, like intellectually I understand what
Speaker 1: has happened, but I'm looking at him and it just
Speaker 1: seemed unreal. It seemed surreal. It was true, but it
Speaker 1: just it. I couldn't really get my head around it.
Speaker 1: I think the proximity to death has the power to
Speaker 1: reorder our priorities in an instant, you know, like arguments
Speaker 1: and grudges and regrets dissolve in the face of life's
Speaker 1: finite nature, and what often rises in their place is
Speaker 1: this clarity, you know that I've spoken about before, this
Speaker 1: understanding that love, like in its purest, most unguarded form,
Speaker 1: is the only thing that endures. In those sacred moments,
Speaker 1: we stop worrying about being right or wrong, or about
Speaker 1: success or failure, and instead we're just there. We're just
Speaker 1: present on simply being with someone and being there for someone,
Speaker 1: like not thinking, not not doing anything, just connecting, just connecting,
Speaker 1: just sharing energy. And you know, there's obviously there's an
Speaker 1: undeniable pain in this experience watching someone we love slip
Speaker 1: away as an ache. It's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: kind of pain that is indescribable. I've had lots of
Speaker 1: physical pain, but I've never had I've never had that
Speaker 1: kind of pain. But you know that there's also, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think, weirdly, there's a beauty. There's a
Speaker 1: kind of a bittersweet beauty that comes from knowing that
Speaker 1: I'm witnessing somebody transition from this life to the next.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's because I'm a little bit spiritual and weird.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't know who you are or
Speaker 1: where you're at with all of that, but and I
Speaker 1: guess it's like an intimate reminder that life, in all
Speaker 1: its complexity and vastness and smallness is. It's simultaneously enduring
Speaker 1: but fleeting. You know, it's precious. The proximity of death
Speaker 1: has a way of breaking our hearts wide open, and
Speaker 1: not just in grief, but also ingratitude for that love,
Speaker 1: that love that we have and that that love that
Speaker 1: we got from that person. But many of us, I
Speaker 1: guess these moments off for an opportunity to connect on
Speaker 1: a deeper level than ever before. You know, conversations that
Speaker 1: once seemed too difficult or too vulnerable become necessary and
Speaker 1: urgent and words like I forgive you, or I'm sorry
Speaker 1: or I love you flow freely, like ego and selfishness
Speaker 1: and awkwardness make way for a level of connection and
Speaker 1: intimacy that we rarely read. I mentioned recently on one
Speaker 1: show about my second mom, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: bore everyone, but my second mom was my mum's best friend, Ray,
Speaker 1: my second mom growing up, so I grew up basically
Speaker 1: my family and Ray's family, husband's gil. They have four daughters,
Speaker 1: shout out to the girls. And the girls were almost
Speaker 1: basically my sisters, and I was basically their brother they
Speaker 1: had They had no brother, just four girls. I had
Speaker 1: no sisters. I had no siblings at all. And so
Speaker 1: in a way we kind of became operationally each other's siblings.
Speaker 1: And so I had this family of four girls and this,
Speaker 1: you know, this alternate mom and dad that I loved
Speaker 1: very much. And Ray passed away. Oh gee, where are
Speaker 1: we now? A couple of weeks ago now, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: three weeks ago now. And on Christmas Day we always
Speaker 1: spend Christmas days together, the families every Christmas. And on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day, I went into I left, we all had
Speaker 1: lunch together, and I left there and I went into
Speaker 1: the hospital to be with her, and she knew that
Speaker 1: she was dying, and she knew that she was on
Speaker 1: the home straight. I knew that she knew that. And
Speaker 1: it was profound, you know, it was It's interesting to
Speaker 1: sit with someone for an hour when you know that's
Speaker 1: the last time you will ever talk to this person
Speaker 1: that you love, Like what do you say? Like what matters?
Speaker 1: And I don't remember thinking this consciously, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: at some stage, you know, I just I didn't go
Speaker 1: in with a plan other than see her, be with her,
Speaker 1: talk to her. She passed away not too many days
Speaker 1: after that. But but what was what was beautiful was
Speaker 1: that she was aware and awake. We could talk. We
Speaker 1: had a good talk, and it's just, you know, things
Speaker 1: come well they did for me. Screamingly into perspective about
Speaker 1: not talking about things that don't matter, didn't mean we
Speaker 1: needed to sit there and have a profound conversation for
Speaker 1: an hour. We spoke about different things, and she laughed
Speaker 1: and I laughed, and she smiled and I smiled. But
Speaker 1: you know, there was, of course, there was an underlying
Speaker 1: awareness and sadness on my part, of course, that this
Speaker 1: would be our last conversation. And I've said this once before,
Speaker 1: but what was amazing was that in that moment where
Speaker 1: we both knew what was happening. Ray that's her name,
Speaker 1: my second mum, she was more concerned about me being
Speaker 1: okay than the pain she was in that where she
Speaker 1: was at on her journey, that what was happening with
Speaker 1: her to her, she wasn't in that moment, she wasn't
Speaker 1: concerned about that. We didn't talk about that. Really there
Speaker 1: was only there was just me and her, like there
Speaker 1: was just for me anyway. I can only speak for me,
Speaker 1: but profound the gratitude, profound connection and love and sitting
Speaker 1: there like holding hands, holding my arm, me holding her arm,
Speaker 1: and I shared this once before, but I'll share it again.
Speaker 1: And she told me that she loved me, which she
Speaker 1: told me pretty much every time I saw her, and
Speaker 1: being the son in inverted commas, I kind of flippantly said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, you know, I know. Of course, of course
Speaker 1: I did that. Of course I of course I kind
Speaker 1: of fobbed it off with my own whateverness. And then
Speaker 1: she squeezed my arm and then made me look her
Speaker 1: in the eyes, and then she told me again and
Speaker 1: said you know, don't you. And I knew why she
Speaker 1: did that. I knew why she did that because she
Speaker 1: she wanted me to know that. She wanted me to
Speaker 1: know that, you know, when she was gone, which was
Speaker 1: going to be soon, that that I could continue on
Speaker 1: knowing that. And it's funny because you know, all of these,
Speaker 1: all of these moments and all of these like these moments,
Speaker 1: these profound moments that we can have where of course,
Speaker 1: in the day to day nous of our human experience,
Speaker 1: of course we get caught up in stuff. Of course,
Speaker 1: we've got to pay bills, and of course we've got
Speaker 1: to wait at the traffic lights, and of course we've
Speaker 1: got to get out of bed, and of course we've
Speaker 1: got to feed out you know, of course, of course,
Speaker 1: and none of those things are bad things. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we're not deep or profound or spiritual
Speaker 1: or ungrateful, because the constancy of being human and the
Speaker 1: requirements are ticking all the being human boxes and going
Speaker 1: to work and looking after kids and navigating the messiness
Speaker 1: of life. Of course, that's never going away. But god,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to hit the pause button. It's amazing to
Speaker 1: just try to extricate yourself mentally and emotion only and
Speaker 1: behaviorally from all the stuff that doesn't matter so much
Speaker 1: sometimes and to step into that space of awareness, you know,
Speaker 1: And I guess it can be in these moments and
Speaker 1: silences where like there's new meaning, Like the silences, you know,
Speaker 1: me sitting there sometimes in silence with Ray, it's like
Speaker 1: it takes on a new meaning, or it took on
Speaker 1: a new meaning. It was no longer empty, but full
Speaker 1: and kind of overflowing with the unspoken understanding, you know.
Speaker 1: And sometimes like words, words aren't enough, Like words don't
Speaker 1: do it, words don't matter. She didn't need to say
Speaker 1: a lot. She said a few things that were profound.
Speaker 1: But in some ways, I think spending time with someone
Speaker 1: that you love who is nearing the end of their journey,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes us think about stuff about our
Speaker 1: own mortality, about the end of our own life, and
Speaker 1: not in a morbid way or a sad way, but
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it makes me think about things
Speaker 1: that I might otherwise avoid. What does it mean to
Speaker 1: live a good life? What am I going to leave behind?
Speaker 1: What am I going to do while I'm here? How
Speaker 1: will I be remembered? Not from an ego point of view,
Speaker 1: but just how will I be remembered? Like these reflections
Speaker 1: can be uncomfortable, but maybe they're helpful. Maybe they're transformative.
Speaker 1: Maybe they remind you and me to live more intentionally,
Speaker 1: maybe to love more deeply, maybe to be more present,
Speaker 1: maybe to be more grateful with this twenty four hour
Speaker 1: period that you and I have this day. Like I'm
Speaker 1: recording this on the twenty third of January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: It's a Thursday. I'm never going to have this Thursday ever. Again.
Speaker 1: I've had lots of Thursdays, but I've never had this one.
Speaker 1: I've had a bunch of January twenty threes, sixty one
Speaker 1: of them, but I've never had this one. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I think, like what for me? What actually matters? Like
Speaker 1: I'm always you know, I'm always talking about what are
Speaker 1: my values? Does my life reflect those values? Do the
Speaker 1: things that I purport to hold or that I say
Speaker 1: I hold in the highest regard? Is that true? Like
Speaker 1: when I'm not on a podcast, when I'm not in
Speaker 1: front of an audience, when no one's looking, when no
Speaker 1: one's paying attention? Am I am I the real deal?
Speaker 1: Am I full of shit? Am I authentic? I? Think
Speaker 1: you probably know I'm serious about all of this. I
Speaker 1: actually think this. This is not a monologue for a show.
Speaker 1: This is actually how I feel. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe for those of you who are spiritual, whatever that means,
Speaker 1: the proximity of death can feel like a almost like
Speaker 1: a crossing over, like a crossing of a threshold, some
Speaker 1: kind of I think of it as like almost like
Speaker 1: a metaphoric door that I walk through from the known
Speaker 1: into the unknown. Some describe a sense of the sacred,
Speaker 1: as though they're standing in a space where the veil
Speaker 1: between the worlds is thinned, or maybe where a curtain
Speaker 1: gets pulled back. And of course some people will find
Speaker 1: comfort in rituals and prayers, in the belief that there's
Speaker 1: something beyond the physical, a continuation, a reunion, a heaven,
Speaker 1: a peace that passes all understanding. So the Bible tells us,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I used to think I knew. I
Speaker 1: thought I absolutely knew. But can I believe with not knowing? Well,
Speaker 1: of course, because belief is about belief. Belief is about
Speaker 1: having faith in something that you don't necessarily know to
Speaker 1: be true. And even for those who don't you know,
Speaker 1: hold such beliefs or have that faith. I think there's
Speaker 1: often a sense of wonder and mystery about dying, about
Speaker 1: the process of dying, like an awareness and a recognition
Speaker 1: that it's both ending and ending in a beginning. I
Speaker 1: think to be with someone that we love as they
Speaker 1: near the end of their life as one of the
Speaker 1: most difficult things will ever do, but maybe one of
Speaker 1: the most amazing and beautiful and meaningful and profound. Like
Speaker 1: it requires us to be brave and loving and compassionate
Speaker 1: and aware, to stay present even when it hurts, and
Speaker 1: to offer our love without expectation or reservation, like there's
Speaker 1: no agenda, there's no strategy, there's just love. It teaches
Speaker 1: us in the clearest and most powerful way that the
Speaker 1: essence of life ain't found in what we achieve or get,
Speaker 1: or own or acquire, but in the connections that we
Speaker 1: create and the love that we share with people. I
Speaker 1: feel like the proximity of death ultimately kind of reminds
Speaker 1: us of what it means to be fully human. Strips
Speaker 1: away all the bullshit, all the pretense, all the unimportant stuff,
Speaker 1: and just leaves the truth. And it's in that truth
Speaker 1: that we find not just lost, but also like profound
Speaker 1: beauty and being alive and joy, and maybe we find
Speaker 1: the courage to face our own mortality, the wisdom to
Speaker 1: cherish the time we have, and the grace to honor
Speaker 1: the lives of those that we love and those that
Speaker 1: we lose, you know, both in their presence right here,
Speaker 1: right now and then their absence. At sixty one, I'm
Speaker 1: way closer to the finish line than I am the start.
Speaker 1: And of course it's my intention to live a much
Speaker 1: longer life, and to learn more stuff and do more stuff,
Speaker 1: help people, serve people, and lift more heavy things, and
Speaker 1: have more laughs, and ride more motorbikes, and you know,
Speaker 1: do all the things. But the truth is, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long I'll live. I don't know
Speaker 1: how long I'll be there. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: future holds. The truth is, I'm not in control of
Speaker 1: all the variables in the lifespan equation, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: but not all of them. And having had lots of
Speaker 1: people die that I love, I'm aware of the gift
Speaker 1: that is one day. I'm aware of the fragility of
Speaker 1: life and also the gift of life, the gift that
Speaker 1: is love, that is kindness, that is connection. And while
Speaker 1: I'm not looking forward to dying, neither am I scared
Speaker 1: of it and friends and listeners. I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 1: why I felt compelled to do this episode today, but
Speaker 1: as I said at the start, I feel like someone
Speaker 1: or someone's one of you, some of you, a few
Speaker 1: of you, a lot of you. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: I feel like someone needs to hear it. And so
Speaker 1: now I've done it. Love me,