What Death Clarifies

I took this photograph in Varanasi, where the funeral pyres burn day and night. As I watched, a cow wandered through the ash of a recent cremation and began to eat.
Life and death, side by side. No separation.

I thought of the people I've worked with over the years. Despite strong careers and full lives, many describe a persistent emptiness: "I have a good life, but I feel lost. I can't find my inner compass."

I wondered whether our distance from death in many cultures contributes to this. When death seems abstract, purpose becomes abstract. We begin searching for something grand because ordinary life feels too thin to matter.

One practice that often brings people back to a sense of purpose is imagining the end. That night, I found myself doing that and asking:

Did I live well? Did I love well? Did I lead well?

The questions were clarifying.
Sometimes the way back to purpose begins not with more striving, but with looking directly at our mortality and letting it clarify what matters.