When?

Contemplating the Great Unknown of Mortality

June 2026

By AD Tippet

“To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.”

William Shakespeare from Hamlet

“If we recognize that we’re going to die someday, the least we can do is prepare to die well.”

Ben Sasse

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

Mark Twain

Let me begin by noting this piece is not an issuance of new or impending sickness or fatal diagnosis on my part.  Despite the little aches and pains that come with a life well and vigorously lived, I am healthy.  But a recent, completely unanticipated death did occur with an old work colleague, and the impending loss of Ben Sasse, a politician of whom I admire – and today that is saying something - has me contemplating this unknowable conundrum.

Rather, this is an acknowledgment and contemplation that our mortality is a when, not an if, proposition.  When one loves history as I do, the comings and goings of historical figures inure oneself to mortality. It is all part of the narrative, not a reason for philosophical or religious contemplation. It becomes a question of what happens when one figure passes, rather than the passing itself, which is the topic. 

Historians, especially military ones, can recite facts and figures from Gaugamela to Gettysburg without pausing to realize that every single statistic was a person with their own dreams and aspirations.  And that is fine.  A historian should begin with an objective stance that enables them to conduct sound scholarship. Maudlin history is not good history.  Yet when looking at prominent historical figures, it is hard not to contemplate some what-ifs, especially when dying at a young age. 

Edmund Ironside, Richard I, Henry V, Edward VI.  All of these English rulers died before their 41st birthdays, not only causing chaos within their realms but also sparking speculation about what might have happened had they lived longer. 

Yet there are long-reigning English kings such as Henry III, Edward III, and George III. What is it about the IIIs? Or the women, for that matter?  Between them, Elizabeth I, Victoria, and Elizabeth II, just three rulers, reigned for 178 years.  I intentionally kept out the two Marys because they had only 11 years of combined experience.

The one thing consistent with English rulers, all rulers, well, all people, of course, is that a time will come when we shed our “mortal coil” and move on.  That we are not entirely certain of what comes after has also changed the course of history.  I cannot fathom the mind of God, but I can understand the desire on the part of religious adherents to long for a form of spirituality that explains far and away the greatest unanswerable question of all: what’s next. 

The quest for a solution has led to the devotion of billions and speculation about what comes next.  The Egyptians built massive edifices and stored invaluable treasures to ensure a smooth flow from this life to the next.  The Greeks imagined Elysian Fields, well, only for the heroic and virtuous.  And Christians and Muslims contemplate a heaven of peace. 

Death even raises the question of how our Founders handled mortality in the context of the greatest government ever conceived: The Constitution.  I will soon issue a series of pieces, in both written and podcast form, about what the United States’ 250th birthday means from my own perch as a historian.  But one of the great things about our Republic, something continually challenged by the likes of Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Donald Trump, is that it is a governmental system built as a machine, not a man.  A William Henry Harrison can pass from septic shock from typhus, or more prominently, FDR from heart issues.  Even a man such as Lincoln can be murdered, and the Republic moves on.  In that regard, something incredibly precious, our nation has the potential not to cheat death, but reckon with it by taking the death of any individual out of the equation. 

What led me to this contemplation of death was not just the impending fate of Sasse, but also a shock regarding one of my previous bosses. Experienced businesspeople transform at some point, when the bulk of their time is spent less on learning and more on teaching.  One also starts to realize that some bosses add value and others subtract.  This individual taught me to look at marketing from an engineer’s perspective: that all marketing is a process comprised of components one puts in or takes out, similar to an assembly line. I had already contemplated marketing as a machine, but this figure gave me the framework to complete the picture. He added to my knowledge and made me a better marketer and business person.   He was also the hardest-working person I ever encountered. People boast of 60-70-hour workweeks, but that’s usually just hyperbole. Not with this guy. Yet he was out of pocket from 5:30 – 8:00 PM because that was family time.  After 8:00 PM? You could usually email him until about 1:30 AM, and he would respond instantly.  Same at 7:00 AM, beginning the workday.   

And he was also relatively young. He was not the first boss to have fewer years than I, but certainly the first to be over a decade my junior.  In fact, everyone on his team was in their 40s and 50s while he was still in his 30s.  In 10 years, he went from Manager to Director, Sr. Director, Vice President, and Chief Marketing Officer, and again became the youngest in the C-Suite by at least a decade. I have seen people promoted in several organizations, including two Fortune 500 companies, but never that fast. A glittering career.  And yet this man passed at the age of 44, with two young daughters to boot, and it is that last I consider the most depressing.  What do all of his business accomplishments mean now compared to those of his family? 

My father is not a great intellectual.  That was my mother who could think rings around her third son.  But in college, I went through a mini depression about contemplating my mortality.  What is this all about if it is going to end at some point?  What is next?  Heaven? Maybe. But also possibly oblivion.  And my Dad said one thing that still strongly resonates, which brought immediate relief.

“Well, you’re alive now.” 

One does not need to see Dead Poets Society and the famous “carpe diem” scene to know what my father was saying.  Or even the “get busy living, or get busy dying” line from Shawshank Redemption, a movie that my old boss loved.  His career still means something in terms of a business legacy, but it was his passion while alive, as was his family.  And that means something even though his time is over. While he was alive, he was not just doing the things he wanted and was passionate about; he did them with absolute excellence while also taking care of his family.  Too many today focus on that first one but seem to neglect the next two. 

The answer to the ‘When’ question is ‘sometime in the future’.  Sadly, that will be earlier for someone like Ben Sasse, probably about two to three decades for me if the actuarial tables are right.  But the real question, the one implied by my Dad, is not when, but “what now.” And the movie I think about is The Return of the King. Please pardon my changing the “may” with “will” in the first line:

“A day will come when we forsake our friends

and break all bonds of fellowship,

but it is not THIS DAY.”