Day 7: Exit Gracefully.
7 Days of Joyful Stoic Death Writing. It's Demystifying Death Week this 5-11 May.
Welcome to ‘7 Days of Joyful Stoic Death Writing’ for Scotland’s Demystifying Death Week, 5-11 May 2025. Each day this week, I’m contemplating and writing in response to meditations on death drawn from ancient Stoic philosophy. I’ll share a daily meditation, offer an invitation for reflection, and invite you to join the conversation in the comments.
Dear You —
ἄπιθι οὖν ἵλεως.
Exit gracefully.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.36
You’ve lived in this great city. What difference does it make if you’ve had five years or fifty-five years? The laws don’t make that distinction. What’s so bad about it? You’re not being sent away by some tyrant or by some injustice! It’s nature—who first invited you here—that’s now asking you to leave.
It’s like the director of a play hires you as an actor only to fire you mid-scene and you say, “But, wait, I didn't get my five acts, I only got three! How unfair!”
Yes, but . . . your life is complete in three acts. It’s up to the director who created your role to also end your role. It’s not up to you.
So, go on, exit gracefully.
Instead of my own reflections here, I thought I’d share a speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, spoken by Jacques.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.Yet, whether you get live all those ages or not — this is not up to you. So, when the director pulls you off stage mid-age or mid-scene, go on and exit gracefully. You have played your part. Know that you might be called off-stage any day now. So play your part well.
Invitations
If you have 5 minutes
Read the above meditation out loud.
Write down (or memorise) a single keyword or phrase to capture this meditation.
Two or three times during the day, repeat this keyword or phrase.
If you have 10 minutes
The above, plus ‘copywork’; your meditative writing practice: In your journal, in lovely, slow, intentional writing, copy out the meditation, word for word.
Try recalling this meditation throughout the day.
If you have 30-60 minutes
The above, plus ‘free write’: Explore further, allow your pen to stay moving on the page. Set a timer for 3 or 5 or 8 minutes. What comes up for you?
When the timer goes off, take a break. Then, return and reconsider your word choices and imagery, and shape into a form that is pleasing to you.
An alternative to the free write is to:
Summarise the meditation into bullet points.
Reformulate (reexpress/rewrite) the meditation using your own words and voice (but don't change the teaching).
And, how about a poetic prompt?
Write a poem about your role in the play of life.
At the end of your writing session, close your journal. Take a deep breath, stretch, put some music on, walk, dance, do something comforting.
Here’s some music to inspire you. This playlist was co-created by participants in a previous version of Joyful Death Writing. Enjoy!
🪦 Finally, remember: Two or three times during the day, just as you are about to enjoy something or someone you love, say this to yourself: "Tomorrow, you will die."
And you’re done!
We’ll meet again tomorrow (fate permitting). 💙
Meet me in the comments
Come on into the comments section and share your writing or anything else that came up for you. I don’t think we can share images in the comments, but if you’d like to share pages from your journal, maybe share as a Substack note and tag me there and/or link in the comments. Remember, the 7 Days are open to all subscribers, so take care with what you are sharing. I encourage you to read and respond to others too. I’ll see you there.
Memento mori,
The Shakespeare quote reminded me of some old lithographs that showed the life of man/woman as ascending steps, peaking at middle age and then descending until death. When I contemplated these images in a relative's house in Kasos, I don't recall considering that someone might fall off the staircase before old age - possibly because my grandparents lived to be very old. Or I wasn't ready to confront this fact of life.
Today's quotes about the world as a stage and the director ordering an actor off the stage mid-act link to contemporary ideas about the world as a simulation populated by avatars. Marcus' quote does not explicitly mention the next step in the syllogism, but I think we can safely infer it from other parts of the Meditations: that it doesn't matter how long one has lived in the world; what matters is the impact that one's life has had in the world - the good that one has brought to the world.
Another take on the moment of death: there's the idea that the soul/higher self knows the best time to leave the present incarnation, no matter how much the ego/localised self may resist it out of fear or attachment to the world. Seen from this perspective, any death, even of an embryo or a child or a young person, happens because the time was ripe (my mother used to say ήρθε η ώρα του - 'it was his/her time [to die]'), and therefore it is as it should be.
Thank you, dear Kathryn, for this week of death contemplation. I needed it during a hectic week when the world needed more of my attention than usual. The morning contemplations set up my day and helped me keep perspective on what is unfolding. It was a most enriching experience once again.
“But I only got seven days!…” It doesn’t matter whether the death meditation email was seven days or twenty-eight days, the length was fixed by the host. Make your exit with the same grace shown to you.
Thank you for putting this on again, and getting me back into the habit of morning reading.