Live your life well, death lurks in the shadows

Back in the day when I used to pretend to be a basketball fan, the Chicago Bulls was the team to beat. It was like Arsenal, if you will. Invincible. A team of superstar players who for a stretch of time were virtually unstoppable. Not that they didn’t have stiff competition, they did. Oftentimes it was the LA Lakers bringing the heat, in a Manchester United v Arsenal-type of way.

The best games, in my inexpert opinion, happened when Michael Jordan (Bulls) faced off against Magic Johnson (Lakers). The MJ v MJ battles remain classic duels to this day. Those two men are legendary. As was Kobe Bryant who came on the scene in 1996, fresh out of high school where he had already established himself as a star.

In his 20-year career at the Lakers, Bryant became one of the game’s most beloved players despite a fair share of scandal that included being accused of rape in 2003. A year later the charges were dropped but his accuser filed a civil suit, which Bryant settled for an undisclosed amount in 2005.

On the court he remained a valuable player, even becoming one of the NBA’s all-time top scorers. Then in 2016, he stepped away from a memorable career to focus on other things. He had just been four years in retirement when he died last Sunday. He was 41 years. To make matters sadder, the helicopter crash which killed him took the life of his 13-year-old daughter too. What a tragic end for one of the greatest athletes in recent history.

Better place

It just goes to show that life is fleeting, and death indiscriminate. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, or what you’re worth. One day your bell will toll, and there will be nothing you will do about it.

The idea that no matter how high you fly in life death awaits is a troubling one. One can’t help but wonder what the point is. Whether life is worth the inevitability of death.

Whether anything really matters in the finite amount of time that we spend on this planet. Bryant’s death, at the ripe old age of 41, throws up all these questions, and more. I mean, despite 20 years of success on the court, the man was still in his prime. He had nothing but promise ahead of him. There was still so much more that he could have achieved.

But that didn’t matter in the bigger scheme of things. His time was up and that was that. It’s something that we all have to contend with in every choice we make. Every choice must be made with the understanding that we could be here one minute and gone the next.

They say that life is short, but our days are long, and I would have to agree. Somehow, we have to learn to be bold enough to chase our dreams and pursue our ambitions, while at the same time exercising some degree of caution and responsibility, just in case the universe grants us the gift of time in its fullness.

Jump over

What we must not do is waste that time on things that add no value to our souls either in life or in death. For starters, we cannot become fixated on political rallies that cover the nakedness of their divisive organisers with the flimsiest veneer of inclusivity.

We cannot sit down to watch the same journalists interviewing the same news sources, asking them the same old questions, while claiming that their interviews are exclusive. We cannot hop, skip, and jump over the black holes in our moral fabric hoping that somehow someone will let in the light.

We cannot live a status-quo life when we know for a fact that death awaits. We have to make the most of it. And that means looking inward to make the types of decisions that propel us in the direction of days well spent, choices soundly made, and efforts well-expended.

As my high school principal used to say, we came into this world alone, and we will leave alone. At the end of the day, we can only truly account for ourselves. With that being said, there is no better way to make collective change than to start off by cleaning our side of the street.

By making sure that we are exhibiting the purest and most authentic aspects of our lived experience. It is only then that we can enter into a viable social contract. One that will protect our humanity against the selfish machinations of a ruthless political class. One which lives as if it will never die.

Ms Masiga is Peace and Security editor, The Conversation