So much effort for a life that could end at any time

My favorite genre of literature is general nonfiction. It evokes emotions in me that no other genre can match. One of my favorite nonfiction authors, Carl Sagan, was extraordinary in his use of language. He was described by another of my favorite authors, Richard Dawkins, as being “incapable of composing a dull sentence.” Reading Sagan’s work fills me with both excitement and a sense of defeat — excitement because of the power and poetry in his prose, and defeat because I don’t believe I could ever attain such literary prowess.

One particularly emotional account by Carl appears in his final published book, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium. In it, he recalls discovering an unusual mark on his arm. Initially, he thought little of it, but at his beloved wife’s insistence, he went to the hospital. There, to his shock, he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome. The prognosis was grim. He found himself on death’s doorstep, waiting to be let in.

His description of the aftermath was beautifully written and deeply moving. Here was a man who had worked tirelessly to achieve his position — a world-renowned NASA scientist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. A man who, just the day before, had likely been chasing goals and nurturing ambitions. And now saw his priorities change drastically as the Grim Reaper slowly approached him to snatch it all away.

In 2022, I finished reading the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. As the subtitle suggests, it chronicles cancer and humanity’s long struggle against it. The book is filled with real-life stories of individuals who, without warning, were confronted with the stark reality of cancer growing within them. Many of them died. They came from various backgrounds and professions, and were, one way or another, exposed to carcinogens that either triggered their genetic propensity for the disease, or acted via some other mechanism, to initiate a gradual and brutal march of their body cells toward cancer.

The book, although not meant to induce feelings of depression in the reader, and although speaking particularly on cancer, brings to the fore the precariousness and ephemerality of life. It offers a microcosmic representation of how everything could be brought to a halt in an instant. How easily our priorities could change, and how all our cumulative personal efforts to get to our current position could be brought to naught. Isn't it a strange thing? Like walking a tightrope without a safety net, and, with so much effort, succeeding in advancing down the rope, but, for some reason, slipping and falling off to a bitter end.