Would daily reminders of death change the way you live?
There is a tradition in many cultures, religions and philosophies of death contemplation: reflecting on the inevitability of death and our own mortality as a means of improving life in the present.
For example, there are the 'memento mori' in Christian art (Latin for "remember death" or "remember that you will die"); images of death or decay lurking around the margins of an otherwise happy scene or a still life.
WeCroak is an app that brings these traditions into the digital age.
For a one-off fee, you get a lifetime of mortality-themed quotations and comments delivered at random intervals five times a day, or in the words of WeCroak "at any moment, just like death".
For example, 'You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think' (Marcus Aurelius) or 'Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem' (Matsuo Basho).
Hansa Bergwall of WeCroak tells us how he came up with the idea for the app, and what it is doing for its tens of thousands of subscribers in over a hundred countries.
"We find that a regular practice of contemplating mortality helps spur needed change, accept what we must, let go of things that don’t matter and honor things that do" - WeCroak website.
