Catherine Rundell, writing in the London Review of Books, May 7, 2020.

In 1606, a devastating pestilence swept through London. The dying were boarded up in their

homes, with their families, and a decree went out that the theaters, the bear-baiting yards,

and the brothels be closed. It was then that Shakespeare wrote one of his very few references to the plague,

catching at our precarity.

The dead man's knell is there scarce asked for who,

and good men's lives expire before the flowers in their caps dying or ere they sicken.

As he wrote, a Greenland shark, who is still alive today, swam untroubled through the

waters of the northern seas. Unquote. Greenland sharks have the longest lifespan of any known vertebrate, up to 500 years.

Still, though, they die. Eventually, all things must and will.

Jody Ernst, Republican Senator from Iowa, in a town hall meeting in May of 2025, defending cuts in Medicare

said, quote, well, we're all going to die, unquote. She later apologized, and then later

kind of walked back the apology, and then later announced that she was not going to run for

re-election, handled poorly, jerk thing to say in context.

But factually correct, we are.

And the thing is, we don't know when that is.

We don't know how it will happen.

It's like we live in this room with a door,

knowing that door will open and someone,

cancer, heart disease, car crash, hippo attack will come get us.

And then we're expected to live our life without just staring at the door?

Life is what happens between right now and the time the door opens.

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