Great epitaph from ancient Rome: “I was not, I was, I am not, I don’t care.”

4 Comments

1. 

   This reminds me of what
   This reminds me of what Seneca, a roman stoic, once wrote:
   “Death is just not being. It will be the same after me as it was before me. If there is any torment in the latter state, then there must also have been torment in the period before we saw the light of day; yet we never felt conscious of any distress then. Death follows us and death precedes us.”
   So, really, why care?

2. 

   Doe not make any sense.
   Doe not make any sense.

   1. 

      This is a popular inscription
      This is a popular inscription that many Romans put on their tombstones. So when you stand there, reading the tombstone, it’s as if the now deceased talks to you, summarizing the essence of his existence:
      I was not (before I was born), then I have been, now I am not again, and I really don’t care.
      Hope that made it a little clearer.

3. 

   Death is the ultimate
   Death is the ultimate contradiction of existence. Death exists despite the absence of being. Like a painter who only paints shadows, existence reveals death by the unfathomable existence of it’s absense.