They say death and taxes are the only things that are inevitable.

“They say death and taxes are the only things that are inevitable. The truth is, you can not pay your taxes. I've done it, and there's consequences, but it can be done. Death you're not going to get out of, and you kind of got to deal with it.” So spoke Steve Earle, the outlaw poet of American song, whose life was carved from both rebellion and reckoning. In these words, half jest and half confession, he lays bare a truth older than civilization itself — that death is the only certainty from which no man, no empire, no sinner, and no saint can escape. Beneath the humor lies the voice of one who has stared into darkness and come back speaking plainly: you may evade the laws of men, but you cannot evade the law of mortality.

Steve Earle, a troubadour forged in the fires of addiction, prison, and redemption, understood that consequences are the rhythm of life. His line about taxes is not only a wry remark, but a metaphor for the bargains we make with the world — the debts unpaid, the duties ignored, the small rebellions that color a life. For a time, one may escape them. The law can be avoided, the rules bent. But death — that ancient and patient truth — cannot be dodged. It arrives for kings and beggars alike, not as punishment, but as the final equalizer, the closing verse in every mortal song.

The origin of Earle’s insight comes from a lifetime of learning through hardship. He had seen the world from its bright stages and its darkest cells. He had run from responsibility, battled his own demons, and learned that while society’s rules can be broken, nature’s order cannot. When he says, “Death you’re not going to get out of, and you kind of got to deal with it,” he speaks as one who has faced that truth — not with fear, but with acceptance. There is wisdom in his plainness. He strips away philosophy and ceremony to reveal the ancient truth known to all who live long enough to look mortality in the eye: you cannot escape the end, but you can choose how you meet it.

Throughout history, the greatest souls have spoken in harmony with Earle’s rough wisdom. The Stoic philosophers taught that death is not to be feared, but to be embraced as part of the natural order. Marcus Aurelius, the emperor-philosopher, wrote: “Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.” Even in distant lands and other faiths, this truth resounds. The Buddha taught that to understand death is to understand life itself — for only in seeing the end clearly can one live freely in the present. Earle’s version is simpler, more rugged, yet cut from the same stone: you can run from taxes, from duty, from consequence — but not from truth.

Consider the story of Socrates, who, condemned to death by the Athenian court, drank the poison not with dread, but with calm. He might have fled; his friends urged him to escape. But he said no. “To fear death,” he declared, “is to think oneself wise when one is not.” He understood that while the body perishes, the spirit’s integrity endures. Socrates, like Earle, reminds us that what matters is not avoiding the inevitable, but facing it with honor. To “deal with it,” as Earle says in his humble tongue, is the highest act of courage.

What then does this mean for us, who live in the fleeting hour between birth and silence? It means we must live awake. To live as if life were endless is to live falsely. To live with the knowledge of death is to live truthfully. When we accept our mortality, we stop wasting time on vanity and fear. We cherish the voices we love, we create while we can, we forgive, we risk, we grow. For the shadow of death is not meant to terrify