Your thoughtful musings make me feel, frankly, uncomfortable. I know what you mean about hearing the silence of your own death, because it's something I've thought about from time to time in recent years.

As a middle-aged man, I adjusted to the idea that I had probably lived longer than I had left to live. Now, on the frontiers of being old rather than middle-aged, knowing I have only a decade or two left (statistically speaking) existential questions become more important.

I haven't yet fully adjusted to that new reality. I'm working on it.