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This is an excerpt from my upcoming book: Be Bold ‘Cause You’re Going to Die. (When it comes out you have only one choice: buy in bulk. I have your email address. I’ll know if you only buy one. I’m dying okay? So you better heed me.)

In Ian MacEwan’s novel Amsterdam one man takes his terminally ill frenemy to progressive Amsterdam to have him euthanized.

In the Denis Arcand film The Barbarian Invasions Remy, the cancer-ridden protagonist retreats to the countryside with his friends before getting Marie-Josée Croze to inject him with heroin until he is dead.

In The Last Doctor a man in chronic pain sits in his SRO hoping for Death but he has no friends or family to help him. Until a rebellious MAID doctor (Medical Assistance in Dying) comes along and saves his death.

Everyone wants to know how to have a good life. This should include a good death.

I think the answer is: Swing for the fences ‘cause life is short. Swing every day. Don’t get angry with yourself if you strikeout. Home-run hitters strike out a lot. Just keep aiming for that fence.

This book is really just a post-it note to myself. Keep trying stuff, Jason. Don’t go and get a job. You weren’t meant for that and besides, you’d be a terrible employee.

I have died 52 years. That’s 52 years I’ll never see again. Those 52 years are gone. What have I done with them? Enter: Rampant Rationalization. No, no J.B. you’ve done a lot, I hear you say. You’ve helped whelp two functioning children. You’ve managed to maintain a much leveraged position within the lower-middle class. You haven’t killed the cat yet.

These are true facts and it would add up to accomplishment but for the relativism (everyone around me has also not killed their cat) that reminds me the real yardstick is elsewhere.

In Margaret Drabble’s short story The Merry Widow a woman goes on a vacation her domineering husband had planned. He had done her the immeasurable kindness of dying prior to take-off. At her B&B she sees an old man cutting the grass next door with a scythe and thinks it must be Death calling for her. But it turns out to be Father Time. Death shows up as a skeleton. This was “only Time, Time friendly, Time continuing, Time healing… And when he had finished cutting the grass he had gone harmlessly away, leaving her in possession of herself, of her place, of her life.”

She breathed deeply. The sap began to flow. She felt it flow in her veins.   

All at once the stakes are high and there’s no need to worry. Worrying doesn’t help but it does hurt. I want to be mindful of my impending doom so I can prioritize. Sometimes I can do it. Sometimes not.

Places I’ve Succeeded in Prioritizing in the Face of Death:

- I don’t reply to emails or texts if I don’t have to. I just delete them. I don’t care anymore. If you message me and I don’t reply it is not because I think you’re a terrible person. It’s just because I’m busy walking with death.

- I don’t hang-out with people I don’t like. I used to do it regularly. I’ve wasted a lot of other people’s time over the years being nice. Niceness is a waste of a life.

- I try not to spend a minute on shyness. I try to talk to strangers but being rather introverted I find it stressful. Nothing ever happens to scaredy-cats sitting in the corner.

- I don’t get in my car unless completely unavoidable. I’d rather be scared for my life on my bike than angry and behind the wheel.

- I don’t go to sporting events unless it’s soccer. (A seventh inning stretch? Are you joking? That should be the end of the bloody game!)

- I am a solitary man. This means I don’t have to maintain a romantic relationship with a woman. This has freed-up huge amounts of time, energy and money. I can honestly say I am the freest I’ve ever felt.

Places I’ve Failed in Prioritizing in the Face of Death:

- I got elected to my union council. This means more emails and meetings, more stress and more adult business. Gross. I can’t wait to quit or be removed due to scandal.

- I still have to earn a living. This is a huge failure. What a lot of hustling. I’d much rather be reading and writing.

- I live in an old house. This takes a lot of resources. I meant to have already moved into a rented apartment where I would have to do little in the way of upkeep. I have no interest in gardening, mowing lawns, raking leaves. I don’t even like plants. Somehow I’ve got myself a large backyard with grass and trees not to mention the above-ground lap pool and the hot tub I now have to maintain.

- I have a cat. The cat-litter situation is the worst part of cat ownership. She’s lucky she’s entertaining.

- I am a solitary man. This means I am not in a romantic relationship. Which definitely leaves a bit of a hole.

28 Summers

A walk with Death reminds me it could end at anytime. But if all goes well I might have another 28 good summers left. What kind of fun would I like to have between now and then? I don’t want to get married again. I’d rather my children leave the house in a timely fashion. I should like to move to Stockholm or Copenhagen if I can swing it.

Ingredients for a Good Life

In order to kick it up a notch I think I should:

- Introduce more bad behaviour. Truancy, day-drinking, dogging.

- More pranks. I’ve recently bought a fart machine. I’m on the hunt for googly-eye glasses.

- Risk-taking: Get back into stand-up, start doing drugs again or go to a sex club.

- Self-publish all these books I’ve written. Stop waiting around for someone else to give me the go-ahead.

- Make shows, onstage and in front of the camera with fellow creatives. That’s what it means to be an actor. An actor is not someone that waits around by the phone.

- Get a Maine Coon. But only after Nala is dead. Well dead. I need a break.   

And include my children in as much of this stuff as possible (minus the sex stuff obviously). Show them how to live a life in the face of a horrifying inevitability that is hard to talk about. Besides, it’s not really death that is so bad as much as it is the prospect of dying, all this anticipation of how it may or may not go. And what of suffering? What of pain or forgetting who you are or who anyone else is? No, I’d rather walk with Death than walk with dementia if given the choice.

Death doesn’t sound so bad in the face of losing your marbles. When I’m really old will I look back and think, I’m so glad I played it safe. Or will I be able to honestly say I tried it all. Success doesn’t matter. Nor will it ever come if not for trying. And the only failure is to fail in making the attempt in the first place.

We try, try, try and then we die. Until then, the man with the scythe is a gentle reminder to care for the one thing that is yours and yours alone: a life.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit boldacting.substack.com/subscribe