I don't think I'm comfortable with my own mortality, nor do I think of myself as a fatalist, but my mortality is something I have only limited control over. That said, I'm with others in this thread in that I think that making good use of my time is very important (which is why this period of intermittent employment really gets to me sometimes).

I called the instructor of a conflict in healthcare course that I just recently completed, to pick her brain about how I can approach my next steps toward creating a meaningful career for myself. In our discussion it became increasingly clear that my interests didn't really fit into the mold offered by graduate programs. I'm really interested in conflict engagement, diplomacy and behavioral psychology and unfortunately my instructor pointed out that graduate programs in these fields tend to move people in very different directions and that it may be that my interests will conspire to lead me to create a niche for myself. Or attempt to. Now, a big part of our conversation had to do with figuring out what questions to ask various academics such that I would be able to more easily figure out how to beat a path.

I feel like that's how I view mortality. I've been around death more times than some and yet it's not something that I really understand. I understand the biological meaning of death and how people deal with grief and how it has affected me or has not affected me, but I don't understand how that all applies to me or doesn't. I recently had a birthday and when I think about time passing I realize that I have so much more than I used to and that I willingly made that choice.

Oh for the days of money in my pocket, booze in my gut, girls in my bed and the sunshine of utter apathy. At this point I'm sure if I live long enough, I'll be able to look back at all the peaks and valleys of whatever life I've lived and know that I'd have lived as much as I cared to but what I find gets to me these days is the weight of possibility. It's like that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when they find that room with the grail. Maybe I'm Indiana. Or maybe I'm Belloch. Either way, there's no "carpenter's cup" and having to make that choice feels like a death. I'm not sure what that means either, but I guess that to me death is ultimately the end of possibility and for some reason that unsettles me more than the thought of dying.