We, and every other living thing on our planet (except maybe some redwoods and olive trees) run out of time, but Time never runs out of time.
Since death is simply what happens when we run out of time, it’s a manifestation of an event, a demarcation between one state (alive) and another (dead). But death is not the enemy, in the same way aging is not the enemy but a manifestation of time passing.
Time is the enemy. Time has a never-ending supply of time (it must be a renewable resource) and yet Time keeps all the time to himself, doling out only what he thinks we need. How much time we have is a mystery, a secret known only to Time. The end of our own time, individually and collectively, is always a surprise, a thing that binds us all, our common denominator, and yet we largely ignore it.
We talk about staying healthy, about extending our lives through diet and exercise. We talk romantically about the importance of friends and family, and sometimes about the quote we’d like on our tombstone, but we don’t spend our time in a way that says, “Holy shit – I’m running out of time!”
We whittle away our unknown allotment of time at jobs we hate, and we tolerate the powerful and incompetent, we hurt our friends and family and lovers and children and parents, and we chase mechanical rabbits around a circular track, and we fight each other as if we don’t have a common enemy. So what we say is clearly not what we do, and Time sits back and laughs, watching, and waiting.
We are trapped in Time’s game, and death makes brothers of us all.
(special thanks to @AJPantaleo and @dawip_official for the inspiration)