In his What is Time?, author Truls Wyller quotes Albert Einstein who, upon hearing of the death of one of his good friends, remarked, "And now he has preceded me briefly in bidding farewell to this strange world.  For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one."

    In other words, the "now" is all that matters.  Everything else is an illusion.  Given Einstein's conclusions about reality, however, his words make perfect sense.  If time is relative, then time is really nothing at all.  And if it is nothing at all, death is no different than life:  regardless of what it means, life is no more than being present, now or later.

    So what do we do?  If transcendence is a myth, Einstein's position is quite logical.  If it is not, however, we face the "stubbornness" of time that endures even if we do not.