Thinking about death

A neuroscientist prepares to check out.

I may be dying, but I’m still a science nerd, and so I think about what preparing for death has taught me about the human mind. The first thing, which is obvious to most people but had to be brought home forcefully for me, is that it is possible, even easy, to occupy two seemingly contradictory mental states at the same time. I’m simultaneously furious at my terminal cancer and deeply grateful for all that life has given me.