Earlier this year I read about an app that reminds you that you’re going to die. It’s based on a Bhutanese tradition that posits people are happier when they contemplate their own deaths five times each day. This seemed logical enough to me, and I immediately downloaded the app to my phone.
WeCroak is extremely simple: I get five random alerts each day between 7am and 10am, with the idea that I’ll tap into the app to read a quotation about mortality. Some of the quotes are medical, some of them are Buddhist, and some are from literature. None of them link to anything. That’s it. In theory I could put similar reminders into my calendar, but they wouldn’t be random and they wouldn’t link to any quotes.
“Don’t forget, you’re going to die” quickly became my favorite alert to receive and my favorite alert to dismiss. Not today, app! I’d think before cancelling the notification. Even when dismissed from my lock screen, the alerts piled up in my Notification Center until I either deleted them manually or opened the app for a quote. I think of the quotes as more of a “nice to have” than a “need to have”; I would be perfectly happy just being reminded that I’m going to die. I do tap through to the app regularly, though, after finding out the hard way that the alerts stop after about a week of not opening it. While this makes for a better user experience by decreasing the likelihood the app will wear out its welcome, I wish there was a way to disable it. As well, the random timing of the alerts means it’s possible to get a flurry of reminders of my own impending doom first thing in the morning or last thing at night, seldom the best start or end to my day.
I freely acknowledge that WeCroak is not for everyone. One anxious friend assured me their brain has been supplying them with hourly reminders they’ll die since childhood, thank you but no thank you for the app recommendation. Looking back it’s hard to believe I’ve been receiving these alerts for upwards of eight months; it feels like I only just started. Somehow the alerts still surprise me. I think it’s because my phone is so personal. It goes everywhere I go, it sits beside my bed at night. And yet I use it almost entirely to connect with the world outside of myself. There’s a special intimacy in receiving a reminder to pause where I am and look inward, to put down my phone and ground myself in the present moment. As long as I’m still alive to do so.
Liz Welsh 