Christopher Sauer

How do I want to die?

When I was a child, I was a very good reader, yet I could not find many books that fully grabbed my imagination. One book that really spoke to me was The Giver by Lois Lowry. There was something about the search for deeper knowledge and deviation from the status quo that really spoke to me.

In that book, The Giver bears a terrible burden of carrying the knowledge and truth of the world and sharing it with Jonas, a young boy, who was singled out to be the next giver.

At the end of the book, The Giver passes along all of the knowledge of the world to the one who was singled out to carry the experience and then passes away. Sorry for the spoiler alert, the book is over 30 years old. It was in that moment that I realized the way I want to die is after sharing all of the knowledge that I possibly could with the few people equipped to responsibly carry it.

How do I want to live?

I’ve never understood why people would want to live in a utopian society where everything is the same. When Jonas started seeing in color is when he realized that there was something different about him. I want to live a colorful existence, even if it means having an intimate awareness about the dystopic nature of what is actually going on around me.

In society, people seem to curate their existence from frameworks that have already been established. This doesn’t seem that rewarding to me. I’m curious about the variety of what the world has to offer while I have the opportunity to ponder upon it. I feel like this is why Jonas resonated with me at a young age.

As I value both knowledge and experience, I need to keep learning nonstop so I can gain the body of knowledge about the world that opens my mind enough to truly understand how the big spinny globe operates. A lot of life looks like ants marching if you zoom out on the telescope from outer space. I want to know why the ants are content to continue marching, or if it is the only thing they know.

Why does it matter?

I have to live with myself until the day I die. I would rather spend a lifetime understanding what truly is rather than pondering what I have been told. Experiential wisdom means everything to me.

Sharing the wisdom of the world is not for the weak of heart, nor is it for the closed-minded individual. At the same time, sharing experience about history is the only way to avoid repeating it in the future. In American society in 2026, a truly dystopian existence, we need old school wisdom more than ever.

Seeing what is wrong with the world and not doing something to chase the higher understanding about it would be truly ignorant of me. The ability of one person to impact change is small, but is fearsomely mighty when used correctly. I’m trying to prepare the ones I love for a resilient existence. That’s why this matters to me.

Outro

The Giver is truly an example of art imitating life. The way that The Giver died was humble and noble, the same way that he lived his life. Once I read the book, I was hooked on understanding what was real and what was presented to me as such and differentiating the two.

It’s something to aspire to. It’s something to understand the power of. It is not a burden for all to carry, but it is needed more than ever.