Time is Running Out

Recently, actor Bruce Campbell stated on a podcast that he has about five years left to live. He'll be seventy-three in five years, and I hope he sees that birthday and quite a few more after it. Bruce is one of the very few celebrities whose death I know I would mourn.

His comments stuck with me because for the past few months, I've been thinking a lot about my own mortality. I don't have a terminal illness or any particular reason to believe I'm going anywhere anytime soon. It's just a vibe thing. Maybe it's part of a midlife crisis, but lately I've become aware that there isn't an unlimited amount of sand in this hourglass.

It's been a strange sensation to make peace with. At first, there was some anger and probably a little fear, but slowly that turned into motivation. I started working on my Skin Deep book, The Blockbuster Chronicles, and a couple of other fiction projects. I went back through old blog posts that aren't currently online but that I'm still proud of, rewrote them, and scheduled them to post over the next few months.

I got rid of a lot of my belongings and spent some time organizing bills, passwords, and other important information for my wife. I also finally pulled the stick out of my ass and disengaged from quite a bit of the internet that wasn't doing me any good. If time is limited, I don't want to spend it reading ragebait or doomscrolling. I don't want to change the world. I don't want to fix it. At this point, I'd really just like to enjoy it.

Maybe I have twenty years left. Maybe I have forty. Hopefully it's even longer than that. But none of us really know, and at any moment that number could suddenly become five years or less. I'm trying to live with a little more awareness of that.

Listening to some of Bruce Campbell's podcasts lately, I see a man who seems to understand this pretty well. He's officially announced that he's done with Evil Dead and largely done with Hollywood. Instead, he wants to create smaller, independent works that are truly his own, like his new film Ernie & Emma and I can understand why.

He's given more than forty years of his life to the entertainment industry, and now he seems interested in making things because he wants to make them. Maybe they won't receive massive theatrical releases. Maybe they won't make hundreds of millions of dollars. But he'll be able to look back and say that he had something personal to say and, while he still had the opportunity, he said it.

There's something about that idea that really resonates with me right now.

As the great Tyler Durden once said...

This is your reminder that your time is limited. Do the things you've always wanted to do. Make the things you've always wanted to make. Put yourself first every once in a while. Stop wasting your finite amount of time on people and things that make you miserable. Stop reading for what passes as "the news."

Try to find some peace in this chaotic world. We aren't going to be here forever.