Tick, tock...

For the existentialist, the passing of time can be one of the deep anxieties of human existence. Whenever I'm in a contemplative mood reflecting on my mortality this deep anxiety can be quite troublesome. Most of the time I can look into the eyes of my beautiful little daughter of three, whose entire life is spread before her with an infinity of possibilities, and this troublesome anxiety gets put back in its box until my next reflective mood.

Recently my wife and I were able to see the last eight minutes of the final episode of our favorite HBO series about a family owned funeral home "Six Feet Under" where the young Claire strikes out for New York to make a life of her own. As the epilogue begins you see Claire (Lauren Ambrose) on a lonely stretch of desert highway somewhere in the west. Set to Sia's beautiful harmony "Breathe Life" the viewer is shown a close up of Claire as the song begins. Her image then melts into a video montage of her entire life from the show's end to her death in a span of six minutes and ends with the show's standard opening of an epitatph of a person whose funeral will be handled by the family business. The beauty is striking and emotionally cathartic for the show's followers and for me it was the most beautiful ending to a series I have ever encounted and likely will ever again. That last eight minutes so defines what a life represents you are all at once struck by how short life is and how truly fulfilling it can be for many of us. It is also a beautiful metaphor on mortality. My wife and daughter demonstrate to me on a daily basis that beauty and fulfillment though every once and awhile that old deep anxiety of how life is slipping away intrudes and gives me pause.

For the existentialist it is a burden that is a price of that fulfillment.