Who Cares About Meghan Markle?

Growing older has its perks. Nothing scares me anymore since I've already done it at least once, with the exception of bungee-jumping due to an inborn fear of dangling at the end of a giant rubber band from a very high place over a deep body of water. Since I have no desire to conquer this fear, I will amend my statement by saying I've already done everything I've wanted to do at least once.

What I haven't done yet is die, and so can claim no understanding of what it's like. I have read many books on the subject which have been of little value since none of the authors of those books have died either, so what do they know? Conjecture is not knowledge.

Most, if not all, people share this not-knowing (and thus fear about) death with me. To avoid thinking about it, they instead focus on whether or not Governor Andrew Cuomo touched someone inappropriately, whether or not the Royal Family of England is racist, whether or not Donald Trump hurt or harmed America as president, whether or not the climate is changing because of man-made reasons, whether or not men who change into women should be allowed to compete in women's sports, whether or not red meat is bad or good for you, how many illegal immigrants crossing our borders are too many, what words are unacceptable to utter in a civilized society and which TV series offers the best distraction to all of it.

What you don't hear much about is death, which is a shame since we're all headed there; it would help so much to be prepared. The clearest depiction of death can be found in the movie Synecdoche, New York, a 2008 film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman and starring the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I believe that if people watch this film followed by the movie Groundhog Day on a regular basis, they would stop arguing about petty things and instead learn how to bake a pie from scratch, paint a self-portrait, knit a sweater, go fishing, refinish furniture, plant a garden and sail a boat while they still can.