A story is told of a Merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market to buy provisions, but after a short while the servant came back, pale and trembling, and said, “Master, just now when I was in the marketplace, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd, and when I turned, I saw it was Death that had jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture.
“Now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.”
The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and rode the horse as fast as he could to Samarra.
Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and saw Death disguised as a woman standing in the crowd, and he came to her and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?”
“That was not a threatening gesture,” the woman said. “It was only an expression of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”
The ancient Romans used to say, “Memento Mori” (Remember, you must die).
We will all die.
One may ask, what’s the point of life, if we will all die? Fair enough.
But it is precisely because we know that “there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest”, that we will not leave anything on the table.
We know that the game of life ends with us in a casket.
But still, we play our hearts out.
Like it’s a World Cup Final.
Life is life
Fabio