You bring some mind an incident when I was 18 years old canoeing with some friends. It wasn’t supposed to be a wild water adventure, but somehow we ended up in some almost-rapids and our canoe flipped over.

I ended up trapped against a log pile underwater by a strong current. I struggled for what felt like a long time, maybe more than a full minute, but was not able to free myself. I remember my body going limp, I remember realizing I was going to die right then, and I remember feeling both sad and disappointed that nothing was flashing before my eyes.

I remember feeling surprised that I was not panicking anymore. Then, I guess because I went limp, the current itself actually snatched me and tore me loose. I popped to the surface gasping for breath, shocked that I was still alive.

The experience did not change me a lot then. I continued to feel something of the immortality of youth, perhaps even more powerfully given my close escape, which began to feel inevitable.

But these days, much more cognizant of my mortality than when I was a teenager, I sometimes think back to that episode and wonder if my final moments will be as easy as they seemed when my body went limp against those logs.