Most People Are Already Dead: Lessons from an 81-Year-Old Goldsmith

At 81 years old, "Klaus" possessed more vitality in his handshake than most people half his age carry in their entire being.

Standing in his workshop, surrounded by the tools and treasures of nearly six decades in goldsmithing, he radiated an energy that immediately revealed an uncomfortable truth: most people are already dead, regardless of their age.

They walk, they talk, they go through the motions of living, but the spark that makes life worth living has been extinguished somewhere along the way.

The Living Dead Walk Among Us

Drive through any neighborhood, walk through any office building, sit in any restaurant, and you'll see them everywhere—the walking dead.

Not zombies from horror movies, but something far more tragic:

People who have surrendered their aliveness in exchange for comfort, predictability, and the illusion of safety.

These aren't necessarily unsuccessful people.

Many of them have achieved what society considers markers of success:

• Stable jobs
• Nice homes
• Financial security
• Social status

But something essential has died within them—the curiosity, the passion, the sense of possibility that transforms mere existence into genuine living.

They're breathing, but they're not alive.

They're functioning, but they're not flourishing.

They're surviving, but they're not thriving.

The symptoms of this spiritual death are everywhere:

• Eyes that have lost their spark of curiosity
• Conversations that revolve around complaints rather than possibilities
• Bodies that move with resignation rather than purpose
• Minds that seek comfort rather than challenge
• Hearts that have closed to wonder and possibility

Meeting Klaus: A Masterclass in Aliveness

The drive through LA traffic to visit my wife's jewelry maker seemed routine enough—a simple fitting for a bracelet casting.

But what awaited was an encounter with someone who had discovered the secret of staying truly alive, not just biologically functioning.

Klaus—the pseudonym he uses with most people—welcomed us into what could only be described as a monument to passionate living.

The building, which he had constructed himself almost 10 years ago, housed his showroom, workshop, and what amounted to a craftsman's paradise.

Every workstation was laid out with German engineering precision, each tool positioned with the thoughtfulness that only comes from decades of refinement.

But it wasn't the physical space that was most striking—it was Klaus himself.

The Handshake That Revealed Everything

When I greeted him and shook his hand, I noticed that his grip was firm and strong, without being that silly "one-upmanship" that weak guys do.

More importantly, there was something in that handshake that immediately communicated: here was a man fully present in his own life.

The handshake of the living dead is different.

It's either limp—a physical manifestation of their spiritual resignation—or aggressively firm, a desperate attempt to prove vitality they no longer feel.

Klaus's handshake was neither.

It was the grip of someone comfortable in his own skin, engaged with his world, fully occupying his own existence.

The Light in His Eyes

He had a light to his eyes that spoke of such life and love of life.

This light is the most reliable indicator of true aliveness.

• You can see it in children who haven't yet learned to dim their curiosity
• You can see it in artists, entrepreneurs, and adventurers who've maintained their sense of wonder
• You can see it in anyone who approaches each day as an opportunity rather than an obligation

The walking dead have lost this light.

Their eyes might be technically functional, but they no longer shine with the internal fire that comes from genuine engagement with existence.

They look at the world with resignation rather than fascination, seeing problems rather than possibilities, obstacles rather than adventures.

Posture as Philosophy

He stood tall and upright, without being stiff.

Physical posture reveals spiritual posture.

Klaus carried himself like someone who belonged in the world, who had something valuable to contribute, who was actively participating in rather than passively enduring his existence.

The living dead slouch through life—literally and metaphorically.

Their posture reveals their relationship with existence: defeated, defensive, diminished.

They move through space as if apologizing for taking up room, as if life is something happening to them rather than through them.

All in all, my first impression of this man was here was a guy who was in love with life and was living his life to the fullest.

The Workshop: A Temple to Passionate Engagement

Walking through Klaus's space revealed the infrastructure of aliveness.

This wasn't just a place to work—it was a shrine to the marriage of passion and skill, vision and execution, art and craft.

We were guided throughout his playhouse, seeing all of the workstations set better than any professional factory I've worked in or built in my 35 years in construction, everything laid out and designed with German-engineering and insight, that only any craftsman with common sense of efficiency can appreciate.

The walking dead work in spaces that reflect their spiritual state:

• Cluttered
• Inefficient
• Uninspiring environments

Spaces, if you can call them that, that drain rather than energize.

Klaus had created the opposite—a space that supported and celebrated the work he loved.

The Technical-Artist's Balancing Act

I could immediately see a fellow technical-artist, who lives that precarious balancing act of being anal-retentive to the details of what and how to do something well along with the butterfly exploration of where does your creative muse take you on the mystical journey of creating art.

This balance between precision and play, between discipline and discovery, is characteristic of those who remain truly alive.

The walking dead have typically collapsed into one extreme or the other: either rigid perfectionism that crushes creativity, or scattered impulsiveness that never develops competence.

Klaus had mastered both sides of this equation, creating a dynamic tension, not unlike a perfectly-tuned string instrument, that keeps him engaged and growing after seven decades in his craft.

The Nine-Year Apprenticeship: Choosing Mastery Over Instant Gratification

Klaus's journey began with a choice that most of today's walking dead would consider insane:

A nine-year apprenticeship in jewelry-making, where for 9 years, he wasn't even making a living wage—$25/month in the 60s (roughly about $270/month in today's dollars).

This period represents everything our instant-gratification culture has forgotten about how real aliveness is cultivated.

Klaus didn't just learn skills—he learned how to learn, how to persist, how to find satisfaction in the process rather than just the outcome.

Learning the fundamentals and foundational skills needed so that he might be able to express his artistry.

Toiling at it, with no guarantee that he could follow in his father's or grandfather's footsteps, especially in war-torn poverty-stricken Germany after WWII.

The walking dead of today want results without process, mastery without apprenticeship, fulfillment without foundation.

They're unwilling to endure the discomfort necessary for genuine growth, preferring the false comfort of immediate gratification that ultimately leads to spiritual death.

Three Generations of Commitment

Klaus was generous in sharing his wisdom, experiences and insights from an almost 70-year career in the goldsmithing business, being the 3rd in his family, after his father and grandfather.

His father, at his height, having a factory with 75 goldsmiths working for him creating jewelry pieces.

This generational perspective reveals something crucial about staying alive: the importance of being part of something larger than yourself.

Klaus wasn't just practicing a craft—he was continuing a legacy, honoring a tradition, and preparing to pass something valuable to the future.

The walking dead have lost this sense of continuity.

They live in the eternal present of comfort-seeking, disconnected from both the wisdom of the past and responsibility for the future.

Without this larger context, daily life loses meaning and begins to feel pointless.

The Opal Metaphor: Dancing with the Impossible

Perhaps nothing illustrated Klaus's aliveness more powerfully than his relationship with opals—one of the more challenging and unpredictable stones in his craft.

As Klaus was telling me about cutting opals and protecting the "fire" in them (the water crystals in the crystallization process of the quartz) that acts as a prism and creating the rainbow of colors that opals are known for, in the cutting process, you can lose them by an errant mistake of the cutting tool with the error margin being as small as a ¼ of a millimeter!

One moment the fire is there, a fraction of a second, it's gone, forever!

This perfectly captures the difference between the living and the living dead.

Klaus chooses to work with materials where perfection is impossible and failure is always one tiny mistake away.

The walking dead seek exactly the opposite—predictable outcomes, guaranteed results, safe choices that won't challenge their fragile sense of competence.

Embracing the 60% Failure Rate

He says that one of the reasons why he loves working with opals is that they are so fickle and difficult to work with.

He said, in his over 60 years of cutting opals, when he's trying to make a matched set, say for a pair of earrings and he is working with a piece to cut them into two, even now, after all these decades of honing his craft, there is still a 60% chance that the opal "won't" cut properly for a matched set, and he'll have to try again.

Both frustrating and invigorating.

After 60 years, a 60% failure rate.

Most people would find this demoralizing.

Klaus finds it energizing.

This reveals the fundamental difference in how the living and the living dead relate to uncertainty and challenge.

The walking dead see failure as evidence of inadequacy, uncertainty as threat, challenge as punishment.

They spend their lives trying to minimize risk, avoid failure, and control outcomes.

In doing so, they also minimize growth, avoid adventure, and control themselves out of a life worth living.

Klaus understands that the difficulty is the point.

The 60% failure rate isn't a bug in the system—it's the feature that keeps him engaged, learning, and growing.

It's what makes each successful cut feel like a victory rather than a routine occurrence.

The Artist's Secret: Flowing with Life

And that is why he is a true artist, flowing with life and what it throws at you and not resting on his laurels of past accomplishments.

This phrase captures the essence of staying alive: the willingness to flow with life rather than fight against it.

The walking dead have rigidified.

They've decided how things should be and spend their energy resisting how things actually are.

They live in the past or the future, anywhere but the dynamic present where life actually happens.

Klaus has learned to dance with uncertainty, to find opportunity within obstacle, to see each challenge as a new invitation to grow rather than evidence that life is unfair.

Not Resting on Laurels

After seven decades of mastery, Klaus could easily coast on his reputation, stick to safe projects, and avoid the risk of failure.

Instead, he continues to challenge himself with the most difficult aspects of his craft. This choice reveals a profound understanding: the moment you stop growing is the moment you start dying.

The walking dead are filled with people who achieved some level of success and decided that was enough.

They rest on their laurels, living off past accomplishments, gradually becoming museums of their former selves rather than vital participants in their ongoing lives.

The Secret of Aliveness at 82

And why even as he turns 82 in a few weeks, he is more alive today, than most people half or even a quarter his age.

This isn't hyperbole—it's observable fact.

Klaus at 82 possesses more vitality, curiosity, passion, and engagement than most 40-year-olds and many 20-year-olds.

Age hasn't diminished him because he's never stopped investing in his aliveness.

The walking dead often achieve their spiritual death surprisingly young.

Some are already dead at 25, having chosen comfort over challenge, certainty over growth, safety over adventure.

They may live another 50 years, but they're essentially repeating the same year 50 times rather than experiencing 50 years of growth and evolution.

The Formula for Staying Alive

Klaus's approach reveals the essential ingredients for maintaining aliveness regardless of age:

Passionate Engagement: Find something you love enough to pursue for decades without getting bored.

Continuous Challenge: Always work at the edge of your capabilities rather than in the safe center of your competence.

Process Focus: Find satisfaction in the daily practice rather than just the end results.

Acceptance of Uncertainty: Learn to love the questions more than you need the answers.

Purpose Beyond Self: Connect your work to something larger than personal comfort or success.

The Wealth, Health, and Longevity Trinity

He's doing what he loves, for the sheer love of it, and the wealth, health, and longevity organically followed.

This reveals a profound truth that the walking dead never understand:

When you focus on staying alive in the truest sense, everything else follows naturally.

Wealth, health, and longevity aren't goals to be pursued directly—they're byproducts of passionate engagement with meaningful work.

The walking dead approach it backwards.

They pursue wealth to buy happiness, focus on health to extend life, and seek longevity to have more time.

But wealth without passion feels empty, health without purpose feels pointless, and longevity without aliveness becomes a prison sentence.

Klaus demonstrates the proper sequence: stay passionately engaged, and wealth, health, and longevity emerge as natural consequences of that engagement.

The Three Bricklayers Revisited

He was a living example for me of the story of the three bricklayers working on a cathedral and you could see which one Klaus was.

The parable of the three bricklayers perfectly illustrates the difference between the living and the living dead:

The First Bricklayer (the walking dead): "I'm laying bricks." He sees only the immediate task, the daily grind, the repetitive motion. Work is burden, life is endurance, existence is something to be gotten through rather than celebrated.

The Second Bricklayer (partially alive): "I'm building a wall." He understands his role in a larger structure but sees only the component, not the vision. He has some engagement but lacks the larger perspective that transforms work into worship.

The Third Bricklayer (fully alive): "I'm building a cathedral." He sees the sacred in the mundane, the eternal in the temporary, the divine in the detailed. Every brick matters because it's part of something magnificent.

Klaus is clearly the third bricklayer.

After over 60 years, he still approaches each opal as if he's participating in the creation of something sacred.

This perspective transforms everything—failure becomes learning, challenge becomes opportunity, work becomes play, life becomes adventure.

The Epidemic of Spiritual Death

Klaus's aliveness stands out so dramatically because it contrasts so sharply with the epidemic of spiritual death surrounding us.

Everywhere we look, we see people who have essentially given up on life while continuing to go through its motions.

Signs of the Walking Dead

Complaint Culture: They define themselves by what they're against rather than what they're for. Their conversations revolve around problems rather than possibilities, grievances rather than gratitudes, what's wrong rather than what's working.

Comfort Addiction: They've organized their lives to minimize discomfort, challenge, and growth. Every decision is filtered through the question "Will this be easy?" rather than "Will this help me grow?"

Victim Mentality: They see themselves as prisoners of their circumstances rather than architects of their experience. Life happens to them rather than through them.

Past or Future Focus: They live either in nostalgia for "the good old days" or anxiety about the uncertain future, rarely fully present in the only moment where life actually happens—now.

Passion Deficiency: They can't remember the last time they felt genuinely excited about anything. Their days blend together in a gray sameness that might be safe but certainly isn't alive.

Growth Avoidance: They've stopped learning, stopped challenging themselves, stopped expanding their capabilities. They mistake stagnation for stability.

The Resurrection: How to Return from the Dead

The good news is that spiritual death isn't permanent.

Unlike biological death, you can return from the walking dead at any moment you choose to prioritize aliveness over comfort.

Klaus's example provides the blueprint:

Find Your Opal

Identify something challenging enough to require continuous learning, meaningful enough to provide purpose, and engaging enough to capture your fascination. This becomes your vehicle for returning to life.

It doesn't have to be goldsmithing. It could be writing, teaching, building, cooking, parenting, leading—anything that demands your best effort and offers unlimited potential for growth.

Embrace the 60% Failure Rate

Accept that mastery includes failure as a feature, not a bug. The projects that challenge you most are the ones most likely to keep you growing. Stop seeking guaranteed outcomes and start seeking guaranteed growth.

Build Your Workshop

Create an environment that supports and celebrates the work you love. This might be a physical space, but more importantly, it's a mental and emotional environment that encourages risk-taking, learning, and growth.

Practice Present-Moment Mastery

Learn to find satisfaction in the quality of your process rather than just the achievement of outcomes. This creates intrinsic motivation that sustains long-term engagement.

Connect to Something Larger

Like Klaus continuing his family tradition, find ways to connect your work to something beyond personal comfort or success. This might be mentoring others, contributing to your community, or advancing your field.

Choose Aliveness Daily

Staying alive isn't a one-time decision—it's a daily choice. Each morning, you can decide whether to approach the day with curiosity or resignation, engagement or endurance, possibility or predictability.

The Choice: Life or Living Death

Meeting Klaus forced a confrontation with an uncomfortable truth:

Most of us are voluntarily choosing a form of living death.

We're trading aliveness for safety, passion for comfort, growth for predictability. We're becoming spiritual zombies who function but don't flourish, who survive but don't thrive.

The choice is always available:

We can continue sleep-walking through our days, or we can wake up to the magnificent challenge and opportunity of being fully alive.

We can choose comfort over growth, or we can choose growth over comfort.

We can rest on our laurels, or we can continue reaching for new challenges.

Klaus at 81, eyes bright with possibility, hands steady with decades of practice, heart open to the magic and mystery of his craft, represents what's possible when you refuse to surrender your aliveness to the false promise of comfort.

The question isn't whether you're breathing—it's whether you're truly alive.

And if you're honest with yourself in this moment, you already know the answer.

The even better news is that if you don't like your answer, you can change it.

Starting now.

Starting today.

Starting with whatever "opal" awaits your passionate attention.

Klaus is creating beauty in his workshop, fire dancing in the stones, possibility shimmering in every project.

The only question is:

Will you join him among the living, or remain content among the walking dead?

The choice, as always, is yours.