It's too cold. It's so cold, I'm wearing a scarf indoors and I don't feel like a hipster. That's cold. I think it also helps that I'm wearing long underwear.
I am a bit of a movie snob. Not enough of a movie snob to have a set of matching Godard towels in my bathroom or anything (although now that I think of it, that would be delightful!), but I'm enough of one to judge a movie unfavorably without ever having seen it. And when it comes to the movie "The Bucket List," I only had to sit through a few minutes of movie previews to know that seeing that movie is not something I need to do before I die.
That's cold.
And, like any good snob, for any wine and cheese you have, I have a slightly older-- and to the discerning palette, better-- version I can recommend.
I give you,
Ikiru, a movie by acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa about a man who learns he has terminal stomach cancer and embarks on a quest to thwart a tangled web of bureaucracy in order to build a playground for children.
I know you probably hate subtitles, and grainy black and white movies, but watch it anyway. If the swingset scene doesn't make you burst into tears and vow to volunteer somewhere the next day, then I don't know man, I just don't know.
As a side benefit, this movie is in the public domain, so unlike most things on the internet, you won't have to feel guilty about enjoying it.
As for bucket lists, I've had several dreams where I've died recently. This morning, for instance, I dreamt that I was attending some sort of class in a restaurant, and for some reason, for this class I was holding an incredibly poisonous snake and I ending up dropping it on the ground.
You can imagine how that one ended up.
But dreams about death are really no preparation for the real deal. The disconcerting feeling of waking up after dreaming about your death aside, it is hard to really grasp that there will be an end to this life. I mean a real end. Not one where you wake up afterwards and ask what class would possibly have you holding a poisonous snake in a restaurant.
There are two likely possibilities that this finallity of death raises, and both of them somewhat invalidate the motivation for making a list of things to do before you die. Either there is an afterlife, in which case you probably won’t care that you never got to take your picture with Bruce Willis or skydive naked or bake the greatest cake that was ever baked by anyone ever; or there is no after life, in which case you won’t be able to care about anything.
(I'll allow for a small chance that there is an afterlife where you may regret things that you haven't done, but I'm not really sure how that would even work. It would just be like a lame continuation of this life.)
This is why I’ve always found the idea of a bucket list a little bit silly, as it posits you looking back on your life after death and being disappointed at something left undone. Instead of asking “What do I want to do before I die?” isn't a better question to ask, "What should I be doing right now?" Or "What do I want to accomplish in my life?" Too much attention is paid to the final moment when so many exist between now and then, even if that moment is coming sooner than we think.
(Besides, I have a strong aversion to lists. They just end up making me feel guilty for not fulfilling them)
I would argue that it is less important to look at life from the perspective of death, than to look at it with a real sense of urgency, living every moment to the height of its potential. Carpe diem, live in the moment, the whole nine yards.
With that said, I shall now go surf the internet and drink my third cup of coffee this morning.
At least it's warm.