My Second Afterlife
This is probably my second afterlife. Not even my first—my second. When I was young, I lived like a man who didn’t expect to see 40.
I did drugs, I traveled, I lived recklessly, and I had health conditions that should have finished me off early. Doctors warned me that if I didn’t follow their instructions, I would hardly be able to climb a flight of stairs. At times they changed their minds, but the prognosis was always grim: my life would be short, and it would be hard.
So I never thought about the long term. I lived as though time was not mine to count. And then, somehow, 40 arrived. That was the first surprise. I thought: what do I do with years I never expected? By then I had already done everything a man might want—traveled through continents, tested limits, seen both the high and the low. So I decided to attempt the one thing I hadn’t tried: family.
My wife became pregnant, unexpectedly. We had a child. But her mental state was fragile, and I had to carry much more than I had imagined. Eventually, the marriage broke apart, and I was left with the child. I took care of her, sent her to school, tried to give her the stability I never had. And in the middle of this, I discovered that my health had reached a breaking point. I had to change or collapse.
I changed. And I recovered. Now I run, I move, I breathe like a man reborn. This is why I call it my second afterlife: I lived a life, I burned it out, I rose into another. Then I nearly lost my body, and I fought for it back, and now I live again. Each stage was not just survival—it was a passage into another existence.
That’s why I don’t cling to life in the same way many men do. George Sanders, the actor, killed himself at 65, writing that he was bored, that he had seen enough. His words made sense in a way: “more of the same” can feel like a prison when one has exhausted all the earthly pleasures. But I see things differently. I already lived through hell once. What I have now is not “more of the same.” It is something extra. Bonus years.
And when I hear a man say he “made a deal with God” to live until 100, I can only shake my head. That’s not maturity, that’s bargaining like a child. As if life is about striking a contract, as if numbers grant meaning. No—life is not about how long you manage to cling to it. Ten good years are better than thirty empty ones. Five good years would be enough. Even that would be a victory.
Our culture has made an idol of longevity, as if the highest good is to drag our bodies through as many years as possible, propped up by medicine and machines, long after the spirit has gone. That is not wisdom. That is fear. Life is not measured in its length, but in its depth, its intensity, its presence.