The Memento Mori Objects

When a Roman general celebrated a triumph—that rare honor granted to commanders of legendary victories—he rode through the streets of Rome in a golden chariot, draped in purple, crowned with laurel, worshipped by the masses.

Behind him stood a slave. The slave had one job: to whisper continuously in the general's ear. The same words, over and over, throughout the entire celebration.

Memento mori.

Remember that you will die.

At the peak of glory, when a man might most easily forget his mortality—when the crowd screamed his name, when power seemed absolute, when he felt most like a god—that whisper pulled him back to earth. You are mortal. This will end. Remember.

The ancient world understood something we've largely forgotten: mortality must be practiced.

It's not enough to acknowledge death intellectually. The knowledge must be kept alive—refreshed, renewed, made present. Otherwise, it fades into abstraction. We "know" we'll die the way we "know" distant countries exist: as a fact that doesn't shape our daily decisions.

The Romans, Greeks, and Stoics developed technologies of remembrance. Physical objects. Visual cues. Daily rituals. Ways of keeping death close enough to clarify life without becoming morbid obsession.

"As if" is key. Seneca isn't asking you to believe you're dying this moment. He's asking you to prepare your mind as if you were—to adopt the clarity that comes when the end is certain. The memento mori objects help maintain this "as if" throughout ordinary hours.

In the graveyard scene of Hamlet, the prince holds a skull and speaks to it.

This is no ordinary skull. It belonged to Yorick, the court jester whom Hamlet loved as a child. The man who carried him on his back, who made him laugh, who seemed so full of life—now reduced to bone.

Where be your gibes now? The question echoes across centuries. All that life, all that laughter, all that personality—where did it go? The skull answers silently: into the same nothing that awaits you.

Shakespeare understood the power of physical objects to make death tangible. A skull is not a concept—it's a thing you can hold in your hands. It has weight. It confronts you with the reality that your own skull exists beneath your living face, waiting for its turn in the earth.

You don't need a literal skull. But you need something. Some object that pulls you back to truth when life's illusions grow too convincing.

The Stoics were practical philosophers. They didn't just think about death—they designed tools for remembering it.

Rings. Wealthy Romans wore rings engraved with skulls or with the words "memento mori." Every time they looked at their hands—signing documents, eating meals, gesturing in conversation—the reminder was there.

Mosaics. Roman dining rooms often featured floor mosaics depicting skeletons, sometimes accompanied by phrases like "Know thyself" or "Enjoy life while you have it." The message was clear: even at the feast, death is present.

Coins. Some emperors minted coins with mortality symbols on the reverse. Commerce itself became a reminder of transience.

Art. Paintings and sculptures featuring hourglasses, wilting flowers, guttering candles—all symbols of time passing, life fading, death approaching.

Marcus didn't need external objects—he carried the reminder in his mind. But even he wrote his meditations as physical text, words on papyrus that he could return to when the reminder faded. The writing itself was his memento mori object.

You can create your own reminders. The form matters less than the function: something that interrupts the flow of forgetting and pulls you back to what's real.

A visual reminder. A piece of art on your desk. A photograph that evokes mortality. A quote in a frame. Something you'll see regularly throughout the day—not hidden in a drawer, but present where your eyes will find it.

A wearable reminder. Like the Roman rings—jewelry that carries meaning. A watch engraved on the back. A bracelet with a phrase only you know. Something touching your skin, a constant physical presence.

A digital reminder. An app that periodically displays "Remember, you will die." A calendar entry that recurs daily. A phone background with a mortality quote. Technology conscripted for ancient wisdom.

A temporal reminder. The birthday candles that increase each year. The New Year's ritual of acknowledging another year gone. The seasonal changes that mark time passing. Natural reminders, requiring only attention.

A personal reminder. An object that belonged to someone who died. A photograph of ancestors. Something that connects you to those who came before and reminds you that you will join them.

There is a risk with any reminder: it becomes invisible.

The quote on your wall that moved you deeply the first time you read it—after a year, your eyes slide past without seeing. The ring that once evoked contemplation—now just another piece of jewelry. The mind habituates. The extraordinary becomes ordinary. The reminder stops reminding.

This is why the Stoics combined objects with practices. The ring reminded—but the morning meditation activated the reminder. The mosaic prompted—but the evening review deepened the reflection. Objects and rituals worked together.

"Each day" is the key. Not once, when you first place the object. Each day, deliberately, you return your attention to what the object represents. The object is a trigger; the practice is the response.

You might also rotate reminders. Change the quote. Move the object. Introduce new symbols. Keep the mind from settling into comfortable blindness.

You might expect this practice to produce heaviness. Constant reminders of death—how depressing, how morbid, how exhausting.

The opposite happens.

Those who maintain memento mori practices report a strange lightness. The small irritations that consume most people's attention—they lose their grip. Traffic jams, rude emails, delayed packages, minor social slights—these shrink to their actual size when held against the backdrop of mortality.

The reminder doesn't create new anxiety; it dissolves existing anxiety. Most of what we worry about is trivial. The memento mori reveals the trivial as trivial, freeing energy for what actually matters.

The memento mori is a filter. It helps you dismiss what doesn't matter and focus on what does. The peace that follows is not avoidance—it's clarity. You're not ignoring reality; you're finally seeing it clearly.

We've now explored the three pillars of the practice: the morning intention, the evening review, and the reminders that hold awareness through the hours between.

But practice isn't the whole story. There's a quality of living that emerges from these disciplines—a way of being in the day that transcends mere technique. The next part of our journey explores this quality: how to live fully within the awareness of death, without being paralyzed by it.

The practice creates the container. What fills the container is life itself—urgent, precious, and absolutely present.

Let us learn to fill it well.