Our April edition of National Geographic came yesterday with a 30-page feature article on the sinking of the Titanic a hundred years ago on April 15, 1912. “What Really Happened” is the subtitle, as if we hadn’t already been over this with a fine tooth comb after James Cameron’s box office record-breaking film in 1997. And even though I perused the article and found nothing really new I could see in its photos and features, I found myself drawn to this story all over again. What is it that is so compelling about this tragic event? Why can we never seem to get enough of it?

Is it the opulence that existed just inside a thin wall of protection? Is it the seeming pinnacle of human pride and ingenuity that turned into such a colossal failure? Is it the false sense of security that made so many disbelieve it was really happening even when the ship was taking on water? Is it imagining the time people had to contemplate facing what was rapidly becoming the inevitable fact – they were going to die in a few minutes? Or is this whole story not a microcosm of how fragile life is on this tiny planet in a vast universe?

Actually it’s all of these and more. It’s a picture of the thin line we all realize exists between life and death. We carry on as if we were going to live forever when really we are at any moment only an iceberg away from an icy death with everything thing we value so much headed to its encapsulated watery grave 2.5 miles down.

In the closing moments of Cameron’s film, the aged survivor revisits the site, climbs up on the railing, and almost as an afterthought releases her treasured necklace to join the wreckage on the ocean floor – a symbol of the fact that her memories are far more valuable than any piece of jewelry.

Why are we living, and what memories are we making now that will last? And how will we go – clamoring for a lifeboat, or singing hymns on the deck? These questions can and should inform the decisions we make today about our priorities and our time.