What meaning would your life have if you knew you were dying?

This week there has been a spate of bad news from friends with illnesses, mostly cancer. Some ambigious, ie, "spots on the liver," some just definitely bad. Many of them are writer friends.

So while I was running today I was thinking about whether it would seem pointless to continue to work on your novel if you knew you were dying.

And then I remembered/realized that we are all terminally ill. We are all dying. Do we only stay sane by pretending that this isn't true for us? My mom is about the only person I know who is ready to go.

I guess in the end it comes down to the what Freud said. Lieben und Arbeiten. Love and work.Loving each other, creating something - those are the important things.