The Sweet Stench of Mortality: A Run Toward Acceptance

As I dive deeper into the Bhagavad-Gita's lessons on love and detachment, a recent run brought me face-to-face with a visceral truth. Here's what unfolded…

I've run countless times in countless places, and I've encountered this particular smell more times than I can count. That sweet, sickly stench that automatically triggers our olfactory senses and something primal within us.

This run was different though. Prompted by two days of missing my workouts due to a hectic week, I needed to move, to think, to breathe.

My run started as they always do: shirt off, running shorts on, On Cloud monsters laced up. The first ten minutes brought the usual assault of urban scents—exhaust fumes, motor oil, freshly cut grass—the symphony of a neighborhood in motion.

Three miles in, I hit that familiar wall of scent. The kind that's so potent it triggers an immediate fight-or-flight response, flooding your nervous system with ancient warnings. This smell doesn't discriminate—it rises from dead plants, fallen leaves, animals, and tragically, people.

The first time I encountered it was in the slums of Guinea, an accident of circumstance that no eight-year-old should experience. That sight, that smell—it carved itself into memory with the sharp precision of trauma.

This is the scent that whispers Memento Mori.

Usually, when this smell hits, I do what anyone would—breathe shallow, push through, escape it as quickly as possible. But this run felt different. My mind was clear, my body responsive, and I was somehow in complete control.

So I did something unusual: I stopped running from it.

I accepted the smell and breathed it in fully. For six long seconds, I let my olfactory system process what it was receiving. And then I noticed something curious—beneath the overwhelming stench, there was always that hint of sweetness. Why?

That's when the run transformed. As I stood there questioning my choice to lean into discomfort, one truth surfaced with startling clarity: One day, I will smell like this too.

Just like my father did. Like my grandfathers before him. Like every link in my ancestral chain.

Morbid? Perhaps. But also fundamentally true, and I found myself accepting it completely.

We all know our memento mori will come, but we rarely sit with the visceral, sensory details of mortality. We think about death in abstractions—emotional loss, meaning, what comes after—but seldom confront the immediate physical reality of what happens to our bodies.

The Bhagavad-Gita speaks of detachment from outcomes, from the temporary nature of the physical form. Standing there, breathing in decomposition, I felt that teaching move from concept to lived experience.

But what about that sweetness?

It turns out the answer lies in chemistry. When tissues decompose, bacteria break down proteins and organic compounds, creating various byproducts—some with distinctly sweet or sickly-sweet odors. Putrescine, cadaverine, organic acids, and alcohols all contribute to this complex olfactory experience.

The sweet notes are most prominent in the earlier stages of decomposition, before the more familiar putrid smells take over. Life returning to its component parts, one chemical reaction at a time.

I ran the remaining three miles in deep contemplation, my legs carrying me forward while my mind processed what had just happened. The run lasted six miles total and left me energized rather than drained.

Strange as it sounds, it felt like I was running away from my mortality—or perhaps toward a deeper acceptance of it.

Either way, it's something we should all do every now and then.