The Lesson of the GOATs Who Died Young

As we move through our life we participate in a continual process of personal exploration, social experimentation and the discovery of our own varying aptitudes and skills. It is often a joyous journey. Yet death truncates the process, at least in this our current incarnation. Unfortunately one never knows when the Grim Reaper will come to call!  Perhaps it will be a calm and natural visit after a long and reflective and creative life. Or the eternal footman may appear tragically and unexpectedly; occasioned by pestilence, war, or random violence. It is this unpredictability, this capriciousness of death that should inform us as to how we should live. Let me explain. 

When reading about the lives of the “greats” - our popular culture is currently obsessed with designating the GOAT, aka Greatest Of All Time, in many fields of endeavor - one often encounters an author musing about what a particular GOAT who died young might have accomplished had but they lived longer. What pictures did Caravaggio leave unpainted? Songs Janis Joplin left unsung? Words unwritten by Brontë? Plath? Keats? Shelley? Wilde? Well, posthumous GOAT hunting is perhaps amusing, but ultimately futile. What is valuable is what we can learn from the truncated lives of these various GOATS.

Interestingly the lesson was best articulated for me by the life of a colleague who was something of a GOAT himself. A well-known Communication scholar and administrator during our shared years at North Carolina State University, Raymond Rogers and his wife Peggy Beasley Rogers purchased some riverfront property, oh, maybe 20 miles outside Raleigh. “Undeveloped” would be a kind description. Nonetheless they christened it “The Good Old Days.” And Raymond - who, after fighting a lifelong battle with various maladies, sadly died at the young age of 57 - would always declare, when he had successfully tempted us to go fishing out at the river, “Ah! these are the good old days!”

And that is the invaluable lesson from all the GOATS who died young: These are the good old days. 

We should try every day, not only to find the place in the universe where we belong, but to fill it to the best of your ability. Paint your best painting, write your best prose or poetry, sing your best song, devise your best algorithm, execute your best research design, dance your best dance, be your best parent, partner, lover - everyday!  Because, even if  you really are the GOAT in your particular milieu, well, there is the off chance that you may not get another opportunity.